Learn more about the WATER Institute’s upcoming events, talks, and workshops. Our outreach and education activities cover a variety of topics including holistic watershed health, beaver restoration and coexistence, process-based restoration, and our Fuels to Flows campaign.
Our newest Basins of Relations publication expands upon its 20-year legacy as a guide to “hydrological literacy.” Within, readers will uncover the systemic conditions that lead to degraded hydrologies while learning practical steps to effect change at varied scales: at home, in our communities, and through policy.
Over the past year, OAEC teamed up with North Bay Jobs with Justice (NBJwJ) and their worker-owned land care cooperative—Semillas en Manos Unidas (la SEMU)—to offer two week-long workforce development trainings that introduced workers to our Fuels to Flows toolkit, the Beneficial Biomass framework, and low-tech process-based restoration techniques for the uplands.
This spring, Brock Dolman, Wildlands Program Director, presented our new Found Gully Model at an event celebrating five years of community-centered collaborations between the University of Chicago’s Data Science Institute (DSI) and 11th Hour Project grantees, including OAEC.
This season, our team has strengthened partnerships, laid the groundwork for new training initiatives, consulted on beneficial biomass projects across Northern California, and garnered community support for holistic updates to the California Vegetation Treatment Program.
WATER Institute Co-Director and Wildlands Director, Brock Dolman, expanded on our Fuels to Flows Campaign for a national network of landscape stewardship professionals. The talk advanced climate-smart, nature-based restoration solutions … Read more
Brock Dolman, WATER Institute Co-Director and Assemblymember Damon Connolly promoting the “Beaver Bill” at a recent watershed council gathering. This summer, WATER Institute Co-Director Brock Dolman attended a gathering of … Read more
Brock and Kate recently had the great pleasure of working with our long-time partners at Tribal EcoRestoration Alliance (TERA) to carry out a process-based restoration (PBR) workshop on Robinson Rancheria … Read more
WATER Institute Co-Directors Kate Lundquist and Brock Dolman are feeling truly inspired after attending BeaverCON 2024 in Boulder, Colorado, last month. This renowned international gathering of beaver and process-based restoration … Read more
The WATER Institute’s Kate Lundquist and Brock Dolman have returned from an amazing four days of beaver and process-based restoration field tours, discussions, and onsite building opportunities at the California … Read more
The Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) published this blog post and an accompanying flier about the practice of gully stuffing, a practice we’ve pioneered at OAEC. We’re proud to … Read more
San Joaquin Valley Water, an independent, nonprofit news site dedicated to covering water issues in the San Joaquin Valley, produced a video titled “Beavers Reintroduced on the Tule River Reservation” … Read more
WATER Institute Co-Director and OAEC Co-Founder Brock Dolman has been busy! He recently participated in two podcasts which we recommend listening to! In the first, Permaculture Perspectives, Brock speaks with …
On March 26, 2024, The Los Angeles Times published a fantastic article titled, Yes, beavers can help stop wildfires. And more places in California are embracing them. In it, writer … Read more
The Occidental Arts & Ecology Center WATER Institute is humbled and excited to announce that we have been awarded a $2 million block grant to develop a program to build … Read more
Like Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food movement, we have our own “slow water movement” at OAEC. You might know it as the permaculture mantra, or perhaps you’ve seen it as part … Read more
On July 24, the Associated Press published an article celebrating the new CDFW policy changes as they pertain to beaver restoration and management and quoted WATER Institute’s Kate Lundquist: “There … Read more
At the June 14, 2023 CA Fish and Game Commission meeting, the CA Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) reported to the commissioners that they have enacted a new beaver … Read more
On May 24, we partnered with the California Beaver Policy Working Group and wrangled 50 state leaders from Sacramento to Doty Ravine to see beaver restoration in action. Protected since … Read more
Brock Dolman, Ecologist and Director of the OAEC Wildlands program, gave an online presentation for FireSafe Sonoma on May 23rd, 2023, introducing the concept of “Fuels to Flows” – turning … Read more
Neil Harvey, host of Bioneers Radio, interviews Kate Lundquist and Brock Dolman to learn all about beaver: their history in North America, how they slow and spread water, create critical … Read more
Ecesis, the quarterly news journal of SerCal (California Society for Ecological Restoration) features an article written by our own WATER Institute Co-Directors, Kate Lundquist and Brock Dolman, and Development and … Read more
SACRAMENTO (June 30, 2022) – Today, Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposal to launch a new Beaver Restoration Program at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife will be enacted at the … Read more
‘Slash Ain’t Trash, It’s Beneficial Biomass!’ – Brock Dolman For the past few months, OAEC’s Wildlands team has been working hard applying for permits to restore a number of eroding … Read more
October 2021 Though the air has been clean at OAEC the past few weeks, we haven’t forgotten that California is still on the heels of a devastating wildfire season (amidst … Read more
OAEC’s WATER Institute was featured this month in SF Estuary Magazine (including Brock Dolman’s cover shot!) for beaver restoration work on Yellow Creek in the Tásmam Koyóm Maidu Cultural Park, Plumas … Read more
The Cultural Conservancy’s Vision for a Biocultural Renewal Project in Graton There is a one-of-a-kind indigenous land project happening right here in Southern Pomo Coast Miwok territory and it happens … Read more
A report back from the Wet Meadows Restoration Workshop In October 2018, WATER Institute partners NOAA Fisheries (National Oceanic), US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, Maidu Summit Consortium, … Read more
WATER Institute co-directors Kate Lundquist and Brock Dolman have fully embodied their busy mascot this summer as they hit the Bring Back the Beaver Campaign trail! The past few weeks … Read more
by Janel Healy. Photos by Brock Dolman. 35% of the palm oil produced in the world comes from Malaysia, and 12% of that comes from the Malaysian state of Sabah … Read more
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