THE KLAMATH MOUNTAINS, A NATURAL HISTORY (AND A LOVE STORY), MICHAEL KAUFFMANN & JUSTIN GARWOOD (BEST OF)

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Happy December! We kick of this last month of this year in celebration of people who have dedicated the greater part of their lives to learning and loving their places.

The Klamath Mountains are a rich site of diversity, celebrated in Michael Kauffmann and Justin Garwood’s book The Klamath Mountains, a Natural History, from Kauffmann’s Back Country Press. Kauffmann’s most recent book, co-written with Matt Ritter, is California Trees, was just awarded The National Outdoor Book Award, and in honor of the seeds of that book being planted by all that Back Country Press does starting from their place in this world, this week we revisit the fertile Klamath Mountains! Enjoy!

We’re in conversation with Michael Kauffmann, research plant ecologist, educator, and founder with his botanist wife Allison of the ecologically focused Backcountry Press, and Justin Garwood, Environmental Scientist for the California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, with a focus on fisheries. Michael and Justin have spent the better part of the last decade curating and editing a cohort of 32 additional expert contributors to a new and really the first comprehensive natural history of the Klamath Mountains, one of the most biodiverse temperate mountain ranges on earth. This distinct North American region, protected by its rough topography for millennia is inclusive of the traditional homelands of more than 14 Native American Tribes, close to 10 separate mountain ranges, and more than 3000 plant taxa, as just a few measures of biodiversity.

The evolving story and natural history of this place has lessons for us all in to best care for, live with, and know our own places.

Listen in!

Photos courtesy of Backcountry Press, with photographer credits in image titles. All rights reserved.

Follow Backcountry Press on line : https://backcountrypress.com/ ; and on Instagram: @backcountrypress/

Join INaturalist and follow the documenting of biodiversity where you are here: https://www.inaturalist.org/

Follow California's 30 x 30 efforts online through www.californianature.ca.gov/;

and the Federal level efforts at: www.doi.gov/priorities/america-the-beautiful

Follow California's Consortium of 30 x 30 partners: www.powerinnature.org/about/

For more on the CNPS 2022 Conservation Conference: https://conference.cnps.org/program/keynote-speakers/

For a great interview with Michael and Matt Ritter about their award winning newest book, check out my sibling program BLUE DOT with Dave Schlom!

IF YOU LIKE THIS PROGAM,

you might also enjoy these Best of CP programs in our archive:

Conserving Biodiversity 30 x 30, Jennifer Norris

Biodiversity matters II: Conserving Plant Diversity in the Northeast

The Yurok Tribe's Revegetation of the soon to be Undammed Klamath River

JOIN US again next week, when we celebrate one woman’s long standing and loving cultivation of place. Janet Mavec is the steward and student of Bird Haven Farm, in rural New Jersey, it's a beautiful, ecological, and intentional conversation about our human and place collaborations. Listen in.

Cultivating Place is made possible in part by The Catto Shaw Foundation, supporting initiatives that empower women and help preserve the planet through the intersection of environmental advocacy, social justice, and creativity.

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Thinking out loud this week:

As look toward the end of another circle round the sun, I want to take this time to say thank you to all of you who come - winter or summer, rain or shine – and as listeners, as participants, as investor/donors offering support to the growing work of Cultivating Place.

Thank you for your contributions that do everything from help me cover the costs of online servers and research tools, to curating the programs coming your way.

In this last circle round, CP completed 52 radio programs and podcasts, 10 CP LIVES, have completed our first full year of Abra lee and Ben Futa joining us as hosts, we will have completed our first year of quarterly CP Communings, our first CP Online Art Auction, and our first ever #cp-100 Days in Place. We’ve engaged with 1000s of you in our more than 20 in-person speaking and recording events this year, with hundreds of you in our digital gatherings; the CP podcast has just hit 4.5 million downloads in its lifetime.

And with the first year of the work being under the great green tent of the Cultivating Place Foundation, the work on the Cultivatingplacefilm.org is now in full-steam ahead post-production.

I cannot do what I do alone – none of us can – besides the plants who companion us every second our of lives, I want to shout out the folks behind the scenes who have grown Cultivating Place so caringly: Filmmaker Myriam Nicodemus is a life force I am so lucky to be partnered with on the CP film journey, and Board Members and Advisors: Khoa Huyhn, Sabrina Jewell, Wambui Ippolito, Jay Samek, Flora Jewell-Stern and of course John Whittlesey, my partner in all, keep us sane, realistic, steady, and growing every day of the year.

It’s all about growing – and how we as gardeners can and do grow the world and each other better. Thank you for supporting the work through donations, through encouragement, through being here listening, and for sharing it forward.

Thank YOU for being a gardener of such heart tending to the natural and future history of your place.

As we enter the season of rest and reflection on the other side of cheerful and busy - please join us for our OUR and final CP COMMUNING of this year: we will gather on Zoom on Tuesday, December 16^th to prepare our thoughts and intentions and cultivating place practices for the coming Winter Solstice on Sunday the 21^st.

These CP Communings are a great time to reground and center the meaning and manifestation of your cultivation of place in community. Registration is free and now open! Please bring a book title that has been instrumental in your cultivating place practice – a garden book, a philosophy book, an art book, a volume of poems, to share with the group, and maybe some examples of your winter cultivating place tasks, traditions and of course intentions.

Link to register HERE and on the Events page at Cultivatingplace.org.

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WAYS TO SUPPORT CULTIVATING PLACE

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