EarthCorps is a core partner of innovative community-based restoration taking place in the coastal area and surrounding watersheds of Commencement Bay. The Commencement Bay Stewardship Collaborative (CBSC) is managed by trustees, which include National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Puyallup Tribe of Indians, Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, WA Department of Ecology, WA Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Washington Department of Natural Resources. Since 1998, they have worked to restore over 300 acres of habitat throughout the Puyallup River Watershed. In 2014, the Trustees entrusted the ongoing stewardship of 17 individual sites to EarthCorps, which we continue to manage today.
Thanks to Rose Foundation’s partnership over the past year, we have begun to expand our restoration to new and important sites within this landscape—Yowkwala and Squally Beach. But the work on these new sites is just beginning. In order to ensure the restoration of these sites is sustained for the long-term, we respectfully request Rose Foundation’s investment in 2022. With your investment, EarthCorps will continue and expand upon the long-term restoration efforts we started at Yowkwala and Squally Beach, lands that belong to the Puyallup Tribe. Rose Foundation’s investment would allow us to:
•Continue removing invasive species and planting native trees and shrubs in Yowkwala’s upland forests, which provides myriad of benefits for water quality and salmon habitat.
•Continue plantings and controlling aggressive noxious weeds at Squally Beach, which provides an emergent intertidal marsh that consists of a mix of freshwater and saltwater that is essential for a complex food web upon which local marine life thrives.
Ultimately, your investment would activate and link restoration on a fuller expanse of the Puyallup Tribe’s CBSC lands, ensuring these sites can safeguard water quality and healthy habitat for salmon and other marine wildlife for years to come.
