Effective Drought Solutions
Strategically reintroduce native beaver populations back into the dwindling watersheds around LA County, using modern techniques where beaver are “trained” to engineer dams where we want them to, yet leave our infrastructure intact. Beavers are proven to be highly effective at mitigating drought, flash floods, and erosion. As the first major metropolitan area to embrace this cost-effective solution, we would be ensuring a lasting, positive impact on the economy and ecology of our whole region.
Britt Sheflin is a private chef committed to zero waste in the kitchen that uses leftovers to feed homeless on skid row daily. She loves the outdoors and thought that beavers should be part of Southern California’s drought solution. She’s smart, compassionate and forward-thinking.
But she needs YOUR help.
Britt has a bold, sweeping idea for the drought affecting all of Los Angeles County. BEAVERS. She wants to introduce beavers on a broad metropolitan scale to the polluted waterways of the LA story. And LA2050 could give her the money to do it. Your vote will help her take this project to the next level. And voting is easy.I’m doing it now. Click on the link above or at the vote link at the 2050 site, and signup to receive the email. Then send a response from that email to confirm your vote. And help move beavers one step closer to LA. Here’s the request in her own words.
“Please vote for a grant from the Goldhirsch Foundation and LA 2050 to make Los Angeles County the first major metropolitan area to embrace beaver reintroduction.” work? The proposal page itself covers the details of how we plan to go about reintroducing beaver to LA County, if we win. Any help on the public awareness front is greatly appreciated! We are currently ranked 30th out of 72 in votes and 8th out of 72 for “most discussed”. With a little help, winning this grant is very doable!
I found out about Britt’s formidable plan from Kent Woodruff at the Methow Project in Washington yesterday. We had never exchanged emails or spoken before that, so you can imagine how excited I was to come across this project. Even more so when I read the project description and saw it begins with a quote from ME.
“Any city smarter than a beaver can keep a beaver!”
-martinezbeavers.org/wordpress motto
I’m realizing now what a difference it makes to have beaver voices from outside the regular community. People making a powerful difference in their own front yard and changing the conversation in a dramatic way. People without ‘biology degrees’ or forestry backgrounds. People like chefs (or child psychologists) who stumble upon this issue and use their unique background and skill set to make a difference. If only our old friend Donna Richardson, who worked SO hard to save the Owens Valley beavers, were alive to see this today!
Britt is the ‘wildcard’ Martinez once use to be. Lets welcome her beautiful idea into the world with a hearty round of VOTES, shall we?
