RNPP 2025 Update
- Kathryn Prive
- Jun 30
- 5 min read
In this post:
Our Accomplishments since 2016. Only the start!
Pruning back. Tuula says goodbye.
Next Steps & Reflections. Where the RNPP has come and how we will continue to carry the torch
Klamath Dam removal restoration site (field trip with the Connectivity Symposium 2025)
The Rogue Native Plant Partnership was established in 2016 with the goal of being both a forum for regional native plant growers and restoration practitioners and to actively develop the native plant material supply chain.
This summer, after nearly a decade of work, we’re taking a moment to reflect on this progress and say goodbye to one of our Partnership Coordinators, Tuula Rebhahn. In addition, this will be our last regular newsletter as we shift toward as-needed communications.
RNPP Highlights, 2016-2025
In 2019, established a Memorandum of Understanding between 32 organizations, establishing a five-year timeline to work toward commonly held goals among these official members of the RNPP
In 2020, Tuula was hired by TUI to assist with accomplishing Partnership goals
In 2021, finalized a Five-Year Strategic Plan with clear deliverables
A Species Prioritization process was completed in 2020 to target 15 species for oak savannah and riparian restoration work
Funding from BLM and USFWS supported regular partnership meetings from 2017-2023
Annual native plant and seed sales were held, moving over 600 pounds of seed out of local warehouses and into the hands of restoration practitioners
In 2023, we began the development of a seed lifecycle & inventory database to manage seed data from wild collection to production to landscape application, across southwest Oregon – 300 seed lots managed with more being added regularly!
RNPP Coordinators supported the development of the Umpqua Native Plant Partnership and inspired native seed partnerships across the US through presentations at multiple National Native Seed Conferences
Shifted fiscal sponsorship from Rogue Basin Partnership to The Understory Initiative, allowing continued staff support from ecologists & partnership coordinators
Tuula with Gabriel Campbell of Rae Selling Seed Bank, and Vanessa Robertson-Rojas of TUI.
A Letter From Tuula
Not many people can say that they learned about the native flora by identifying seed pods.
In my first months as an intern with The Understory Initiative, that’s exactly what I found myself doing. At Rogue River Preserve, the coin-like discs of lomatiums. In the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument, the brown beans of lupines. At Table Rocks, tiny brown bananas containing Clarkia seeds. And at Roxy Ann, the tall rattles of sacred Camas. Only in my second season of fieldwork did I start noticing the flowers that preceded these gifts. Seeds will always hold a special place in my heart.
This winter, five years later, I found myself thumbing through bags of seed, deciding which should be donated to the Rae Selling Seed Bank housed at Portland State University. All of these memories of seed collecting in all of those beautiful places came flooding back to me. Every seed is a story – of days of sunshine and rain, and generations of evolution and tenacity. Of the drive, hike and taxonomic journey it took for the seed collector to meet that seed and know its name. And the layers of ownership and hopes attached to it once it enters human hands. I found myself reciting these stories as I decided the fate of each bag in my hands: Collected on conserved land for future grow out that never happened. Collected on public land for a grant that has since expired, but could be a useful species for an upcoming project that may or not be funded this fiscal year.
The best stories belong to the seeds no longer in our possession. These are the seeds whose journey has brought them back to landscapes through the right combination of partnerships between humans, institutions and good timing. For the seeds headed to the seed bank in Portland, the story continues; some will be stored long-term, others will be used for research, and others will go to students planting native gardens.
That day I realized that it’s not the seeds we keep in our possession that are important. It’s the knowledge of where and when to collect, which we have tracked carefully over the years. It’s the relationships we’ve built with landowners and managers to establish access to good populations of seed-yielding plants. It’s the cool and dry storage space we’ve built over the past few years to hold pounds of seeds grown out at farms. Despite the odds, it’s all working.
I am grateful to have gathered all these seed-stories, and made so many great friends; people tending the land and partnerships of Southwest Oregon in various capacities. I know that we will meet again in the next chapter!
RNPP Next Steps
In these times of radical changes to ecosystems as well as our political and social systems, we are, like the plants, practicing flexibility and cultivating quiet resilience. RNPP has met challenges in implementing its Five-Year Strategic Plan due to lack of ongoing financial support. And in the past few months, our federal leadership has indicated that the very concept of partnership is no longer in favor.
In taking a hard look at what there is of value in the Rogue Native Plant Partnership, we found it helpful to turn back to the Values & Goals visual that we developed last year. See the original version here on our website. In this new version of the flowchart, we used triangles to represent change in how each of our goals will be impacted going forward. And we added the logos of some of our partners doing the work on the ground.
Reflections
What became clear immediately is that much of the work we set out to do has been accomplished or is well underway (green triangles on figure above), but has taken different names and identities in this dynamic ecosystem we call the native plant materials economy.
We indicated these achievements with purple triangles. For example, local growers of seeds and plugs have begun developing their own, diversified supply chains for plant materials. The Understory Initiative (TUI) has been prioritizing species and growing out seeds for various oak savanna and meadow restoration projects from the Rogue Basin to the coast. Our colleagues at the Institute for Applied Ecology have developed a Native Seed Network that supports nascent plant material suppliers across the nation. And, TUI has now partnered with them to develop the Oregon Restoration Growers Guild, which will apply lessons learned in the Rogue and elsewhere to support native plants on lands across Oregon. Other local groups, such as Vesper Meadow and Pollinator Project Rogue Valley, offer volunteer opportunities in native seed collection, while TUI has absorbed much of the responsibility for developing new protocols for seed amplification, documenting and tracking seeds as they move through the supply network.
That’s not to say the work is over! Yellow triangles indicate gaps where funding is needed. We continue to seek pathways for Tribal-led initiatives here in the Rogue. AI and other technology has made community science easier than ever, and there is much to be explored in this arena. Climate change and shifting restoration practices mean that revisiting species priority lists should be happening every year or two. And, there can never be enough outreach, education, and diversification of financial support for any environmental organization.
Going forward, we would like to turn our attention toward climate-resilient plant species, and developing seed mixes specifically for partners in the riparian restoration sector. Though there are few federal funding opportunities at this time for this type of work, some of our state-level partners are still able to offer grants. Despite the “pushback from above”, we still firmly believe that cooperation and partnership is the most efficient and effective way to turn a handful of wild collected seed into an acre of seed crop, eventually finding its way to a diverse plant community in a well restored habitat.
For the plants!
Tuula & Kathryn
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