Birds- the reflection of your progress.

Listening to this YouTube yesterday, created by NEW Audubon & the Oneida Nation brought it all together, full circle.

The embedded YouTube is a lecture from the Oneida Bird Monitoring Project that is right here in the place I call home. It is also an effort that I have been part of both as a volunteer and as a volunteer coordinator. It's an incredibly interesting partnership between the Oneida Nation, NEW Audubon, and Audubon Great Lakes an effort to record bird data to quantify the conservation restoration efforts here in Oneida. I cannot even begin to explain with words the wisdom, vision, and passion these presenters have but it is felt in the video. The presenters include: NEW Audubon president and Senior Researcher for the Cofrin Center of Biodiversity at UWGB - Erin Giese, Oneida Nation Cultural and Language Elder - Randy Cornelius, and Oneida Nation Wetland Project Manager - Tony Kuchma.

Tidbits I have gleaned from this lecture:

-The Allotment Act of 1887 granted Oneida Nation head of households each a 100 acre parcel in Oneida, WI which was the Oneida Indian Reservation. Totaling 65,400 acres to be deemed the Reservation.

-Through political, social, and cultural pressures the size of the Tribal held acreage had dwindled to 30 acres by the early 1920s.

This is mind-blowing to me.

-Historically, the land which is now Oneida, WI was swampy forests - which were later forested, drained, and made into agriculture land.

---> My family immigrates from Holland in 1914 and purchase of the 100 acres of farmland.

-The land and the above swamp areas that Oneida is situated on is the 'filtration' system for the small waterways, creeks, streams, and rivers that eventually dump into the Bay of Green Bay.

My conclusion drawn, the importance of creating stable soil/plant systems to keep the topsoil in place and prevent runoff, etc.