MISSION: Engaging science, culture, and community for ecological restoration
Help continue our work by donating today!
Trail Keeper: PRI has over 2 miles of trails going through Douglas fir forests, around a young Garry oak savannah, and to 10,000 year-old prairie remnant. Your donation, either one-time or reoccurring, helps us keep these trails available to the public.
Native Plant Friend: Pacific Rim Institute grows over 50 native species at our Native Plant Center, including the threatened golden paintbrush (Castilleja levisecta), camas, Roemer’s fescue, and more. Your donation helps us keep the native plant center active, including building and maintaining the beds.
Habitat Helper: Microecosystems around the property have created different habitats, and your support can help us manage these habitats for the species that call them home.
Conservation Partner: There might be a conservation easement on 145 acres, but the work to prevent loss of biodiversity continues as we do prescribed burns, seedings, plugging, and other restoration work.
Legacy Builder: The foundation of the work we hope to do form many years to come as we week to expand the prairie and oak savannah habitats and maintain the forest habitat.
Choose where to direct your funds:
Water System Replacement – with a fresh water tank that is over 60 years old, and a building that cannot be retrofitted to house a new tank and the necessary electrical system, a new water system and pumphouse is more critical than ever.
Seed Equipment – Through equipment either built by our volunteer head-of-seeds, Harold, or purchased with him, PRI is slowly speeding up the process of debulking and cleaning seeds. As improvements to the process are made, our ability to higher volumes of seeds will also improve. Your support can help us purchase larger pieces of equipment to help clean seeds.
General Funds – Support all aspects of PRI, including trail and field maintenance, building maintenance, and more. General Funds help us keep our work going.
We achieve our mission through:
Engaging Science
From its early days as a fieldwork course site for undergraduate students until now, the PRI campus has played a crucial role in empowering future scientists with a deep environmental sensibility that gives shape and direction to their vocational lives. We actively collaborate with other science-based organizations and universities, both local and global, in rigorous, site-based field research.
Engaging Culture
We believe that environments are shaped by culture, and that culture itself is impacted by environments in turn. All places, then, are imbued with a diversity of stories. At PRI we seek to listen deeply to the stories of the forest, savannah, and prairie spaces under our care—and to let those stories shape our stewardship of the land. We believe that healing of the land often involves the healing of broken relationships—between people and the land, and between people groups. In our work with religious and civic groups, we encourage those whose cultural histories have been associated with these harmful legacies, to imagine more humble and sustainable ways to live as good relatives in the whole family of creation.
Engaging Community
We listen humbly and intentionally in order to learn from neighbors, research colleagues, collaborative organizational partners, and local civic and faith groups. We encourage volunteers to feel a sense of belonging in the PRI community, as well as a sense of ownership about the conservation work we do together. We cultivate the health and growth of our local island community as well by opening our facilities for regular, long-term use by local community groups, schools, and clubs.
Ecological Restoration
PRI works to heal and restore these prairie, forest, and savannah ecologies at our site; importantly, we are also committed supporting other ecological restoration efforts throughout the Puget Sound region. We have also joined collaborative efforts to save endangered species such as the golden paintbrush (Castilleja levisecta) which, thanks to collective efforts, was recently removed from the endangered list, and more recently the Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly (Euphydryas editha taylori).