Today we have guests coming associated with the Sequoia River Lands Trust because they want to ask questions about beavers. They are hoping that hearing the Martinez story will encourage them on next steps. So Jon is making lunch for us and I am trying to be coherent.
Just in case you need a Geography lesson, the headquarters of the Sequoia River Land Trust is in Visalia, which south of Fresno and North of Bakersfield. Here’s their mission statement:
Sequoia Riverlands Trust is a regional nonprofit land trust dedicated to strengthening California’s heartland and the natural and agricultural legacy of the southern Sierra Nevada and San Joaquin Valley. The wealth, productivity and beauty of this land inspire our work to conserve it for future generations.
If the name sounds familiar its because years ago one of the designers of this website, Scott Artis, took a communications job with them and I was one of his references. Scott worked in the medical field and wanted to break into environmental biology, so used Worth A Dam as his credentials for a while – which was great for us, and I assume great for SRLT. Scott himself longed for the Bay Area and eventually moved onto the Audubon Canyon and I believe is working independently now. But beaver paths that cross leave deep tracks, as well you know. I’ll let you know how it all unfolds.
Mean while Sarah’s Beaver-Climate change documentary is on the front page Sunday news in Walla Walla.
Filmmaker finds hope in charismatic tree chompers
Sarah Koenigsberg is used to telling other people’s stories.
The Walla Walla resident has been all over the map in her role as owner of and producer for Tensegrity Productions. In 2013 though, Koenigsberg was ready to devote serious time to her own project, a longer piece that would require the right topic and level of commitment to bring it to fruition.
“Then I just happened upon multiple people in various fields of restoration … all espousing how beaver restoration could be a profound way to come at climate adaptation,” she said.
Beavers? Like the furry creatures who live in the river and build dams?
Yes, beavers.
Nice intro! Of course beavers. It’s always beavers. Around here anyway. Need help saving salmon or removing nitrogen of fixing a deeply incised bank? BEAVERS can do it. Prevent fires, recharge the ground table and save us from climate change? Why the hell not?
“The Beaver Believers” is whimsical — with those big chompers and twitchy noses, beavers look ready for prime-time comedy — but carries the urgency of climate change conversations.
The story revolves around an unlikely cadre of activists who share a common vision of rebuilding the population of the North American beaver, which Koenigsberg calls the “most industrious, ingenious, bucktoothed engineer” in the watersheds of the arid West.
Unlikely? Who are you calling unlikely? I’ll have you know I was voted most likely to save beavers in my graduating class of 83. Or would have been, if there was such a thing in the Reagan years. And honestly, twitchy noses? You are thinking of rabbits. Does this really look twitchy to you?
Then the Carlton Complex Fire in the summer of 2014 sparked the opportunity to get really visual. At the time, the Okanogan County inferno was the most massive, recorded wildfire Washington state had experienced, burning more than 250,000 acres.
Her camera could capture the effect of the blaze blasting through beaver restoration areas, to record if the believers’ hypothesis would hold. That example of ecosystem resilience was “kind of gold,” she said, noting that functioning drainage systems are natural firebreaks.
“Water doesn’t burn. It doesn’t take a Ph.D to know that water doesn’t burn.”
Oh no it doesn’t. This is just the right thing to be reminding viewers of. Although preaching to the choir was a phrase probably written specifically for the idea of showing a beaver documentary in Washington state.
“I’m getting flooded with messages from people across North America. They want to try all these things, plant willows, learn about local farms. There’s a whole ripple of ways people are trying to bring it closer to home in what they do.”
I bet she is, I bet she is, because I’m having lunch with strangers from Visalia for goodness sake! And not surprisingly, the premiere is sold out. Could you possibly go to Alabama or North Carolina next?
