SeaForester's current project "Kelp Restoration from the Inside Out (KRIO)" engages Abolition Ecologies* to facilitate mutually restorative relationships between system-impacted people and kelp forests in Northern California.
KRIO uplifts and strengthens mutual healing between resilient ecosystems and brilliant people by:
Providing high quality Environmental Justice education
Investing in researchers, organizers, and educators who have experienced incarceration
Developing relationships with community partners in cooperative development, aquaculture, restoration work, and BIPOC food sovereignty
Co-creating intentional, humanized spaces for connection with the Land/Sea
*The critical connection between our work and Abolition Ecology is a direct result of the work and guidance of Dr. Renée Byrd. Dr. Byrd is a leading scholar-activist in the field of AE as well as the founder of Earthseed Laboratories & the Institute for Abolition Ecologies.
Inside (San Quentin)
SeaForester co-facilitators (incarcerated and free) lead popular education workshops from KRIO's Ocean Connection and Community Care curriculum. These multimodal lessons engage participants (our incarcerated colleagues at San Quentin) through storytelling, movement, reading discussions, games, and open inquiry on topics including:
Kelp Ecologies and Foodways
Threats to Kelp Health
Kelp Powered Climate Systems and Solutions
Critical Environmental Justice/Relevance to Prisons
Human relationships with Land/Sea
Food Systems and Solidarity Economics
The KRIO curriculum supports participants in developing and enacting independent research projects, experiential lesson plans, and policies which contribute to Environmental Justice initiatives within prisons. This vital work is likewise shared with and reviewed by a wide network of peers in the fields of research, Threats to ocean health, education, and community organizing. This strengthens the projects, contributes to solidarity between incarcerated and free ocean care workers, and vehemently fights against the erasure of incarcerated people.
We are honored to share that this curriculum serves as a new home for the historic Green Life project at San Quentin. The Green Life project, started by incarcerated individuals at San Quentin in 2009, has been dedicated to supporting those affected by incarceration by helping them find their passion, purpose, and leadership. By creating thriving lives for individuals and communities, The Green Life aims to promote wellness, restorative justice, and re-entry work. Green Life has impacted thousands of people within and connected to those who are affected by incarceration.
Outside (Humboldt County)
In Humboldt County, formerly incarcerated Abolition Ecology Researchers are developing California's first Reentry Support and Ocean Care Cooperative. If researchers agree that a cooperative should form, they will create a comprehensive business plan and move forward with founding the co-op. To achieve this goal, researchers will attend skill building and coastal connection workshops with relevant community partners. Importantly, they will align their research with seasonal changes in the kelp forest. For example:
In Autumn, ocean water is clear and warm. Researchers will use this time to vision. They will create strong relationships, community values, and accountability processes while clarifying the theories which guide their work.
In Winter, surging waves and predation unsettle kelp from their holdfasts. Nutrients cycle. Relationships change. Researchers will delve into human-kelp partnerships and Indigenous Coastal Sovereignty.
In Spring, nutrients rise from the seafloor in a thick green cloud. Kelp grows rapidly. In conjunction with this upwelling, researchers will consider Cooperative Development and histories of uprising and resistance.
In Summer, the kelp forest is abundant and full. A thick fog settles over its surface. Researchers will evaluate the 'two faces' of reentry - the abundance of returning to community and the carceral fog of parole, isolation, and system driven recidivism.
Based on preliminary research, a Reentry Support and Ocean Care co-op could contribute to healing Northern California’s kelp forests by cultivating:
