Introducing the Forestry Internship Program
By Walker Laughlin
This year, WELLKIND launched an innovative Forestry Program that promotes forest health, resilience, and biodiversity. As part of these initiatives, we are providing education and training in habitat management to high school students ages 16-18.
The internship program offers academic and vocational training in forestry policy, practices and science, as well as environmental communications. In this way, we prepare high school students to be the next generation of green professionals and environmental stewards.
We launched the internship program with the help of two partners: the Marin County Office of Education’s School to Career Partnership一with which WELLKIND’s Executive Director, Catriona Glazebrook, has had a relationship spanning 15 years一and the University of California, Berkeley.
Catriona Glazebrook draws from her experience leading EarthScope Media’s Academy for Sustainability and Communications, a program recognized by National Geographic for training high school youth in environmental journalism. For this past program and other projects, Catriona has interviewed over 250 scientists and innovators in the field of conservation, climate change, and species conservation. We are enlisting the support of Glazebrook’s colleagues and presenters to enrich our instruction. Such guests include geologist and National Science Foundation member Dr. James Powell and internationally recognized botanist Diana Beresford-Kroeger.
Their combined wisdom, along with Glazebrook’s 30+ years of habitat management experience, help us train interns to support ecosystems as they face unprecedented challenges under global climate change, and share their techniques with the public in green communications projects.
Walker Laughlin, WELLKIND’s Program & Development Manager, is a lead instructor for the internship. Walker earned his Bachelor’s in History from U.C. Berkeley in 2020. He has 6 years of experience in environmental communications and education. In high school, Walker participated in EarthScope’s internship program and served as Education Manager for it while attending college.
According to Glazebrook, “The need for the WELLKIND Forestry Internship program is great for two primary reasons. First, in a climate changed world, the old style of forestry management is not only out of date, but harmful. Using advanced scientific data now available, we have a much better understanding of the direct impacts to trees and wildlife and how to best support them in this transition. Secondly, it is important to provide accurate scientific information, some of which has just come to light in the past few years, and ‘real job’ training so that youth can be better prepared for 21st-century green careers.”
Interns have already dived deep into topics like soil health, regenerative agriculture, peer-reviewed research, and climate change. They have learned about the issue of false balance in the media’s coverage of global warming, why soil health is so important in forest ecosystems, how animals benefit the land, the impacts of cattle ranching on the Tule Elk at Point Reyes, and other important, timely topics. We combine presentations in the classroom with exciting field trips to ecological sites in Sonoma and Marin, such as the Point Reyes National Seashore.
Jack Geischeidt is suing the National ParkS Service for its management of the Tule Elk, an endangered species in California. On a field trip led by Jack and Walker, the interns visited the Seashore to learn about the impacts of cattle ranching on the park’s biodiversity and the efforts of activists and ecologists to protect the elk.
Our interns also learn about WELLKIND’s innovative forest management practices and implement them in hands-on work. As one of their major projects, each intern is writing a section of a habitat management plan for a 700-acre site in California. In July, the interns visited the site to conduct water quality tests and gather other key data.
Some Presenters and Topics to Date
To reinforce what the interns are learning from our core instructors, experts in forestry, landscape architecture, environmental communications, and other relevant fields participate by presenting their research and information.
On June 24, Dr. James Powell discussed his research on climate change. In a popular meta-study, Dr. Powell found that despite the media’s tendency to present climate change as an “unsettled” field of research, the consensus that climate change is real and human-caused is virtually complete among scientists. After reviewing over 21,000 peer reviewed papers, he confirmed that not a single one made a scientific argument against the reality of climate change being human-caused.
Dr. Powell also gave the interns “bullet-proof” arguments of the reality of humans’ impacts on the climate. One proof is that the rising levels of the carbon dioxide that is linked to global warming contain carbon isotopes that are only found in man-made varieties. In short, the carbon that’s going into our atmosphere is not natural.
On June 21, Jared Holmes shared lessons from his career as a Conservation Biologist for the Selah, Bamberger Ranch Preserve in Central Texas. The ranch has used innovative agricultural techniques to restore biodiversity and manage the land in a way that brings it closer to its natural state, or how it was before European colonization. For example, before the American Bison were exterminated from Central Texas, they performed crucial ecosystem functions like wallowing in the ground, which created tiny vernal pools. The Bamberger Ranch preserve has intentionally flooded parts of the preserve to recreate these pools. This innovative technique is restoring the land’s aquifer and bringing back indicator species like the yellow mud turtle.
On June 24, Dr. Ray Ward, the founder of Ward Laboratories, talked about the importance of the soil and innovative soil management techniques. He shared how important microbes are to the health of the soil, and to the plants who grow in it, and ultimately to the humans and animals who eat those plants. Microbes die when the soil gets too hot; this is one reason why soils have been suffering as the climate warms. Improving soil quality is a core practice in our forestry program.
Another way to support the soil is to fertilize it with manure from animals. Dr. Ward explained bow animal droppings contain high levels of soil organic matter (SOM). SOM builds soil fertility, improves soil structure, builds aggregate stability, and increases nutrient retention and water-holding capacity.
Here is a list of the topics covered by our program:
Climate Change Trends and Impacts
Natural Resource Management
Landscape Plan Design
Testing of Water, Soil, and Other Key Indicators of Ecosystem Health
Innovative Ecosystem Design
Environmental Communications Tools—blogs, social media, videos
Trends in Media
Research: Finding and Analyzing Peer-Reviewed Scientific StudiesCareers in Environmental Communications and Habitat Management
Real-World Projects
WELLKIND’s forestry internship is unique in giving interns real, hands-on experience in habitat management. In mid-July, our interns visited an active restoration site in Sonoma County. They applied what they’ve been learning to the real world, participating in tests for water quality, fertilizing oak trees, and completing other key habitat management tasks. The data they helped us gather will support WELLKIND’s formal habitat management plan for the site. Each student is also contributing to the writing and research behind the plan.
As they learn from experts and complete their hands-on work, the interns will make projects in environmental communications to share their knowledge with the public. Under Walker’s guidance, students will write blogs, produce social media posts, and film and edit short videos to showcase new developments in environmental research, activism, and industry.
The internship will conclude with a career panel on August 9. Scientists, activists and green industry leaders will speak to the interns about how they can prepare for 21st-century careers that benefit the environment. We will broadcast the panel on Zoom to an international audience. REGISTER HERE
We hope that this internship helps guide high schoolers towards innovative careers in the environmental field. At the very least, they will leave the program with knowledge and tools to become stewards of their local ecosystems.