This fall, King Conservation District partnered with the cities of SeaTac and Burien to lead a two-week long forest stewardship program for local youth. Students in this program explored the value of urban forests, gained experience with natural stewardship principles, and helped restore North SeaTac Park and Hilltop Park. Eleven youth, many of whom were new to exploring their local green spaces, were trained on several restoration practices like removing nonnative blackberry at the root and freeing native trees that had become overgrown by ivy.
An important component of this program was to teach its students to build the resilience that comes from having a relationship to the natural landscape. In addition to practicing restoration, this cohort of young stewards connected with each other and to the landscape by learning about the native plants that form their home cities’ unique ecology. They were taught to identify various local plants and certain plants’ traditional uses. Students learned to make tea from plants like cedar and how to make cord from stinging nettle. They also learned how to efficiently reforest willow trees by planting live stake willows, a method that is affordable and effective for establishing new forests.
The youth who participated in this program have made lasting improvements to their local green spaces, increasing their cities’ tree canopy, and creating space for native plants and people to thrive. These students’ restoration efforts in spaces like Hilltop Park will continue to benefit their community by improving access to nature there. We hope the lessons they take from KCD’s youth forest stewardship program continue to inspire these students to connect to their local green spaces and to steward the nature in their backyards.
