CATSKILLS COMMUNITY RESTORATION / STREAMBANK
The “Streambank” project restores riparian buffers by removing itadori (aka “Japanese knotweed”) and planting willow, while exploring experimental uses of both plants through a network of artists and designers. We aim to show that long-term, non-chemical knotweed management can be self-sustaining and scalable through innovative uses of plant biomass in local circular economies, while restoring ecosystems, sequestering carbon, and making communities more resilient.
Our role in the project attends to the cultural and social dimensions that often fall outside the purview of traditional ecological restoration work—organizing people and networks, designing objects and processes, and building community—and that look beyond the here and now of our pilot site to work that is more regional and ongoing. Hence the name “Catskills Community Restoration.” This involves hosting residencies for compensated work and research at our pilot project located along a scenic stretch of Schoharie Creek in the town of Prattsville in the Northern Catskills. We are seeking Stewards, Artists, Designers, Ecologists, Organizers, or Educators in Residence, for 3 to 8-week periods between April–October 2024.
APPLY
Please use this Google form to apply for a CCR/Streambank residency in 2024. See our residencies page for details.
A volunteer remove stalks from a dense knotweed thicket.
Traditional bushels as experimental desiccation technique.
Early Detection Rapid Response for propagules at stream bed.
Bioleather prototypes by 2023 steward in residence Anna B.
De-barking rhizome for medicinal products..
Paper samples made during event at Women's Studio Workshop.
Diverse practitioners may carve out meaningful projects from the site’s myriad possibilities, but this will be easiest for those already interested in some of the following: biomaterials, agroecology, permaculture, and regenerative agriculture, traditional knowledges and ecocultural heritage, multifunctional riparian buffers and food forests, circular economies, real sharing economies and commoning, queer ecology, multispecies migrations, environmental justice and decolonizing conservation, land stewardship and land-based practices. Persons from histories of environmental racism or inequitable access to land are strongly encouraged to apply.
The project was initiated in 2023 by Toolshed, a tool lending library based in Hudson, in partnership with Deurendis, and working closely with Greene County Soil & Water Conservation District and the Town of Prattsville on a pilot site along a scenic stretch of Schoharie Creek in the Catskills. The project advances a practice of biocultural restoration as an alternative to traditional “invasives” management, attempting to restore connections between people and land, to question conceptions of landscape as undisturbed scenery to be preserved, and to challenge practices of “fortress conservation,” or climate/biodiversity land uses that disrespect indigenous rights and traditions.
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