#- Ecology Consulting Services

[charile0]

Comprehensive Ecological and Arboricultural Services for Sustainable Planning

Integrating biodiversity and tree management into development planning is vital for creating sustainable and environmentally conscious projects. At Aval-Group, we specialize in providing expert biodiversity assessment consultants and arboricultural survey services to support your planning applications and ensure ecological compliance.

Our team of biodiversity net gain consultants works to help you meet the latest requirements for enhancing biodiversity in development projects. By conducting detailed ecological assessments, including bat surveys for planning, bat roost assessments, and bat emergence surveys, we ensure that protected species and habitats are preserved throughout the development process.

For projects in urban areas, our ecological survey London services deliver expert insights into the local environment, providing tailored solutions to meet the unique challenges of city planning. Our ecology consulting services, and ecological consultants are equipped with the knowledge and experience to guide your project toward sustainability and compliance with regulations.

In addition to ecological services, Aval-Group offers comprehensive arboricultural surveys for planning. Our arboricultural consultants assess the health and safety of trees on your development site, ensuring that your project protects valuable tree stock while meeting regulatory standards. Whether you need an arboricultural consultant in London or elsewhere, we provide detailed reports and recommendations to help you incorporate trees into your planning process.

By engaging Aval-Group’s arboricultural surveyors and ecology experts, you gain access to industry-leading services that balance development goals with environmental stewardship. From biodiversity assessment consultants to arboricultural consultants for planning, our integrated approach ensures your project meets ecological and arboricultural standards while fostering long-term sustainability.

Contact Aval-Group today for professional ecological and arboricultural services that help you create responsible, compliant, and environmentally friendly developments. Let us guide you through the complexities of planning with ease and expertise!

[tdtreesdoune]

TD Tree & Land Services Ltd

TD Tree & Land Services Ltd provides comprehensive tree surgery and land management services across Edinburgh, Central Scotland, and Northern England. Our arborist services encompass all aspects of tree care, including pruning, felling, firewood, crane dismantling, veteran tree management, site clearance, storm damage, stump removal, tree surveying, tree consultancy, tree reports, tree surveys, bat and ecological surveys, forestry and woodland management. We also offer arboricultural and ecological consultancy services for planning applications. As an Arboricultural Association Approved Contractor, we ensure top-quality service and adherence to industry standards, serving commercial and domestic clients. Notable clients include various councils and major construction firms.

Website: https://www.tdtrees.co.uk/tree-surgeon-stirling/

Address: Estate Office, Home Farm, Moray Estate, Doune, Perthshire, FK15 0AR

Phone number: 01786 821750

Business Hours: Mon - Fri : 07:00 am – 05:30 pm Sat : 07:00 am – 12:00 pm Sun : Closed

Contact Email: info@tdtrees.co.uk

[eekaconsultancy]

World Environment Day 2024 focuses on land restoration, stopping desertification and building drought resilience.

[siglo-group]

Leading Environmental Conservation & Urban Development Consultants

Discover Siglo Group, a trusted name in Environmental Conservation Planning and Ecological Restoration Services. Our Urban Development Consulting firm specializes in sustainable solutions for a greener future. Let us guide your project towards eco-friendly success today.  Visit Here : https://siglogroup.com/

[winedarkthoughts]

house of addams (1)

— 🌖 pairing: ot7 x fem.reader

— 🕷️ genre: mystery, angst + fluff + smut

— 🗝️ word count: 4.3k

— 🍄 summary: hired to look into the mysterious deaths, disappearances, and disturbances in the small town of Farrow's End, you soon meet a certain gang of oddballs who help you connect the dots. and NO, you are NOT taking a liking to them.

— ☕ content warnings: private investigator!reader, cozy small town mystery/addams family vibes, botanist!yoongi, magical absurdity, bookshop owner!namjoon, barista!jin

— 🕸️ a/n: first chapter! directly influenced by this fic on ao3 by tinyratthief, which is loosely based on the addams family.

series m.list/schedule → next chapter

chpt. 1: new digs

september 16, 2004

If this job has taught you one thing, it’s that the laws of truth can and will be bent by anyone with enough concentrated effort. People come to you to find very specific truths; birth parents, cheating spouses, the details of shady business deals.

But if this job has taught you one thing, it's that the truth will also reveal itself to anyone with enough concentrated effort.

Though, there's always a handful of cases that force you to delve deep into things you’d rather leave buried. Like the person in Oregon who didn't show up in any photographs. Or the small town in Maryland with the strange, centuries-old secret society.

You’ve seen sides of human nature that have left you cynical, distrusting. Some have called you “dead inside,” but you’re not here to brag. Naturally, you are excellent at your job.

And when the Mayor of Farrow’s End, a sleepy town with enough missing persons cases to warrant a Netflix documentary, contacted you about a possible case, you accepted almost instantly.

Even her first correspondence and initial offer were strange. She stated a preference to discuss the finer details in person and in person only, which to you immediately suggested that the entire investigation would be a matter of confidentiality.

You were proven right when you met with her a week later. And while being proven right is usually one of your favorite things, you didn’t exactly expect this.

The offer: investigative services regarding (but not limited to) local missing persons/homicides, ecological disturbances, environmental chemical imbalances. etc.

In exchange for: monthly salary, rent support, covered business expenses.

And above all, everything must remain off the books.

The salary along with the rent support is very generous considering what you're used to, but you don’t tell the Mayor that. You do inform her that, while you wear many hats, you are not an ecologist, nor a chemist.

Mayor Summerbee, a middle-aged Asian woman with a sweet smile and even warmer eyes, informs you that you will have access to the local University’s college of natural sciences. She gives you the contact information for one Min Yoongi, a botanist who works in the school's research department.

Then she gives you the contact information for one Kim Taehyung, the town coroner and pathologist. Apparently, both of them will be available for consultation.

She is eager, maybe even desperate, smiling at you with an urgent sheen in her eyes.

When you accept her offer, shaking her hand with your usual firm grip, she seems to exhale in relief.

You move to Farrow’s End by the end of the week. It’s not as if you have much to move, just a trunkful of books and a handful of duffel bags. You’ve always moved around for work, and even if you didn’t, staying in one place for too long makes you nervous.

Your bags hit the pavement beside your boots as you survey your new home. It's a small, quaint house. The paint is faded but the architectural structure is sturdy. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, kitchen, living room. The whole place is in a slight state of disrepair, but you can't complain.

You spend the next day cleaning and unpacking, which doesn't take long since you leave most of your books in the trunk. You're exploring the town by the end of the afternoon.

The town square, though full of shops and businesses, is nearly barren. A few civilians putter around, their faces weathered and reflective of the gloom in the air. They stare at you as you pass by, a cocktail of curiosity and slight suspicion.

The next thing you notice is the posters. They're everywhere, on the crumbling brick walls, stuck on lampposts, taped to the windows, all displaying a variety of subjects. Events at the University, local night markets, antiques for sale.

But there are a few that stick out. THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE LAKE! Sign the petition to restrict land access →

HAVING STRANGE DREAMS? You're not alone, contact a psychic today!

BEWARE! DO NOT FEED LOCAL WILDLIFE.

Though, what's more strange to you is what you don't see. There are barely any missing person posters, and the few that you do see appear to have been ripped away.

Work begins now, you think to yourself as you snap some photos of several posters, flapping in the cold wind.

You pop into the general store to pick up some essentials, and the store clerk immediately recognizes that you're not a local.

He asks where you're from, you reply with the standard answer: a city not too far but not too close. He asks what you're doing here, you reply with the standard answer: you're a journalist. You add in the suggestion that you're working with the University about a story, and he doesn't question any further.

You're not sure if it's because he takes the hint or because he loses interest.

During the drive home, you notice something looming in the distance. Atop the highest hill is a dark house, with spires and towers rising from the tops of spindly trees. Even from here, you can see that the architecture is old and ornate, almost ancient in a hypnotic way. You're fairly certain you can see a murder of crows circling above.

An unusual feeling hangs around the house, like there's some kind of aura surrounding it. Welcoming some, yet blocking others.

Very strange indeed.

You spend the rest of the night huddled next to the fireplace, using the flickering orange light to skim over newspaper clippings.

No, the house does not have a heating system. But you don't mind too much, you have plenty of wood and warm clothes.

Five missing and three dead in the last year. Local law enforcement has done everything they could with what they had to work with, which apparently wasn't much. Scattered locations, no visible connection between the victims, and an alarming lack of evidence.

Eyelids heavy, you leave the papers scattered across the floor and head to bed, already looking forward to tomorrow's first coffee.

september 17, 2004

The University appears to be just as old as the rest of the town. Original wood, aged stone, curved iron accents. The brick walkway is slick with morning rain, and the sky is swirling with fog.

Perfect weather, it makes you ready to get to work.

The directory stated that Min Yoongi would be in Montgomery Hall, the natural sciences building, either in the greenhouse or in one of the labs, according to the TA you talked to earlier on the phone.

It takes some wandering, but what you like about this place is that people don't seem to notice your presence as much as they do in town. Out there, you're an easily identifiable outsider. Here, you're just another passerby with a purpose.

You find him in one of the lab rooms, tucked into a little nook that's encased with plastic sheeting, dotted with beads of moisture. The small space is crowded with greenery, big pots of tall plants with fanning leaves, draping vines from wall planters, seedlings in little trays.

Through the condensation dripping down the plastic walls, you can see that he's spraying the plants down with water, wearing a classic white coat.

You're indulging in your bad habit again. Your footsteps are notoriously quiet (you've been told), and you (apparently) have a tendency to sneak up on people and observe them for several minutes before they notice that you are there.

But it's a skill you delight in.

The man is of average height, thin, black hair, delicate features. You notice that the soles of his boots are caked with mud, and his skin is dewy from the humidifiers pumping moisture into the room.

"You already know my opinion on this," you hear him say, muffled by the spray of the water.

For a moment, you think he's talking to you, that he's rejecting your case before you've even presented it to him. But he isn't facing you, and his tone is decidedly casual, like he's talking to an old friend.

"It's bad for the others, anyway," he continues. "Don't wiggle your trigger hairs at me like that."

A pause, the water flow stops. Then a sigh of defeat.

"Fine, one puff. Then you quit pouting, got it?"

There's the sound of shuffling, then the fwick of a lighter being ignited.

Your curiosity gets the better of you, and you step forward to peer through the slit in the plastic sheeting.

There's a Venus fly trap on one of the shelves, and between the jaws of one of the trap mouths, is a lit cigarette.

The man's head piques up when you enter his field of vision. Eyes widening, he looks like a cat that's been caught off guard.

He looks between you and the plant several times. You're fairly certain you see the tip of the cigarette glow ember, as if the plant were actually inhaling.

The man snatches the cigarette away and crushes it beneath the wet sole of his boot.

"Nasty habit," he finally says with a nervous chuckle. An awkward, straight-mouthed smile crosses his face, making his cheeks puff out slightly.

"Min Yoongi?" you ask.

"Yes, ma'am," he responds politely.

"I'm ______," you say, holding out a hand to shake.

He shuffles forward, his cold slim fingers meeting yours.

"Ah, the mayor mentioned that you'd be around."

That throws you a bit, because from what you've gathered about this case, you assumed that the mayor didn't want to be associated with it.

"Yes, would you mind filling me in on some of the ecological disturbances that have been going on in town?"

It's as if the question sends ants crawling down his spine. His neutral smile dissipates into an anxious twitch of his lips. He turns the hose back on and resumes spritzing the plants.

"What do you want to know?" he asks, a new tension in his voice.

Odd.

"Well," you start, "The mayor tells me that locals have been complaining about strange mushrooms invading their yards, increased acidity in their soil. Would you know anything about that?"

His eyebrows are knitted as he dampens the leaves of a spiraling fern.

"Mushrooms are really just the fruit of fungi, they bloom like flowers when the conditions are just right. Moisture, shade, an abundance of organic material, stuff like that. When it comes to the acidity, there's a variety of factors. All the rainfall recently leads to leaching, and the increased use of fertilizers causes nitrification. It's pretty standard."

You raise an eyebrow. He's deflecting.

"People have been saying that these mushrooms have been particularly hard to get rid of."

Yoongi 's brows furrow as if he's thinking hard.

"Fungi are tricky like that. We don't know much about them, really. They're their own class of life form. It could be a particularly stubborn strain."

"There's also been some unusual plant growth, creeping vines or the like. Very resistant to herbicides, apparently."

He pauses, considers it.

"Hmm," he mutters, the nozzle of the hose going lax in his hand.

“Also,” you continue, trying to further engage his curiosity. “There's been several cases of strange root rot?”

You add a questioning tone to your voice, gauging his reaction. Apparently, he hasn’t heard about it, because he looks up at you with the same question in his eyes.

“Root rot? In household plants?” he asks.

“No, in residencies.”

Yoongi stares at you for a moment, and you can tell he’s intrigued.

“I would benefit a lot from your knowledge, if I could just bring you a few samples, maybe go out and do some fieldwork—”

“You wouldn’t like working with me,” Yoongi interrupts. “I’m very…particular.”

You have a feeling the word is meant as a substitute for something else.

“Wonderful, so am I,” you reply, digging one of the many notebooks out of your bag. Flipping to the calendar, you click open your open your pen and start scribbling.

“Mornings are best, get the most out of the daylight. Make sure to bring your equipment and something to write on, and a camera if you have one.”

“Wait, I just don’t know if I’m going to be much use to you,” Yoongi says a little nervously, sticking his hands in his pockets.

You pause your scribbling to look at him. He’s pale in the fluorescent light, but not just physically. He has pale mannerisms and pale expressions, the countenance of a person that doesn’t feel as if they belong.

You know the feeling well.

“Coffee is always on me. How do you like it?” you say instead.

“Does Wednesday work?”

september 18, 2004

Three dead and five missing in less than six months. First, Michael Bradley, aged forty-two. Cause of death: chronic poisoning/exposure to toxic chemicals. He was found in his garage surrounded by household cleaners and herbicides. Apparently he’d been trying to get rid of the same strange mushrooms in his yard.

For now, all you have to work with is what they’ve published in the newspapers, and it seems that all that's come out of it is a public service announcement warning homeowners to be careful around toxic chemicals. His wife, Mary Bradley, hasn't commented on the circumstances of her husband’s death. And no one else has inquired any further into the matter.

Until today, obviously. Mrs. Bradley didn't answer her phone, and when you knocked on her door earlier this morning, she seemed less than pleased.

You opened with the standard introduction: I'm a journalist working on a story, would you mind consenting to an interview? Mrs. Bradley narrowed her eyes and scanned you up and down with barely concealed suspicion.

She asked what a journalist would find interesting about a common, accidental death in a small town. Apparently, the citizens of Farrow's End are very perceptive to outsiders.

You mentioned that fact that although Bradley's death appeared accidental, it's not common for people to die at the hands of household chemicals from prolonged exposure. Chronic poisoning is rarely without symptoms, why didn't he go to hospital?

She didn't have anything to say to that. You asked if she'd be comfortable divulging some of the details of his death, maybe even giving you access to the autopsy report. But she just grimaced at the mention, insisting that she had nothing to say about the matter and that you should leave right away.

She slammed the door in your face, but luckily it wasn't the first time people have resisted your questions. Unfortunately, a significant part of your job involves being a pain in the ass.

You linger in the front yard, where it's impossible not to notice the gnarled tree stumps and large rings of mushrooms scattered across the lawn.

You're not a mycologist by any means, but even you can tell that these mushrooms are strange. They seem to be multicolored, red and orange and brown, changing depending on the light like a hologram, but without any of the shine. They aren't bulb-shaped like many other mushrooms, but twist in tendrils this way and that, stretching.

And a smell hangs about them. You can't really describe it, something like damp and musk and old meat. Standing there, breathing them in, for too long makes your head spin.

And the trees, or rather, what's left of them. Nothing but stumps now, but you can tell that they were old when they were cut down. There's that same multi-colored effect to them, except it runs in veins throughout the tree's bark, spiraling into the rings.

You'll have to ask Yoongi about it.

Curiosity nips at you like a non-venomous snake even after you're home. It's not deadly, but it sure as hell is annoying.

What kind of disease infects fungi and trees? Why would the mayor care about privately investigating such a thing? And a thousand other questions.

You shove your boots on and enter back into the chill. You remember seeing a bookstore in town.

The Magic Shop: Books and Oddities

The front window glows with warm light, crowded with displayed volumes and curiosities (a stuffed raven, a jar of yellowing teeth, insects encased in amber).

The door swings open with the ring of a bell. Someone calls out "Welcome in," in a deep-velvet voice.

The smell of parchment and aged leather envelopes you like a familiar hug. You can't help pausing in the doorway and inhaling deeply. No matter what city you're in, places like this always feel like home.

It's everything that a bookstore should be: crowded, mysterious, and slightly dusty. The shelves are tightly grouped and arranged like a labyrinth few are privy to, and stacks—no, towers—of books occupy every corner.

You enter into the space, feet padding on the braided rugs, eyes drinking in the details. There are labels on the shelves, haphazardly spaced. They start normal enough: gardening, self-help, adventure.

But then you realize that they branch off into even more labels, or rather sub-labels. There's nocturnal gardening, gardening under the influence, Faerie gardens and goblin gardens. Each labeled sub-genre branches into even more specific sub-categories, creating a seemingly endless array of subjects.

You could explore this place for hours. In fact, you intend to over the course of your stay in Farrow's End.

You spend an indeterminate amount of time exploring all the labels and categories. The shelves twist this way and that, creating little nooks where the occasional armchair is tucked into.

Eventually, you come to a more open area with a wide-sprawling desk. The man sitting behind it is tall and tan, glasses perched on his nose, with short chestnut hair that shifts golden in the candlelight.

He's deeply focused on the book in his hands: A Comprehensive Guide to Navigating Parallel Universes and Pocket Dimensions.

Typically, you hate to bother people in a bookstore, especially if they're already reading. It's supposed to be a space for quiet reflection, for self-exploration and uninterrupted browsing. But you still have a job to do, and it's clear that you won't be able to navigate the complicated system yourself. At least, not in a concise period of time.

So you square your shoulders and prepare yourself to address the (handsome, you notice) man at the counter.

"Excuse me," you begin in a hushed voice.

The man's head whips up, as if he completely forgot there was another person here.

"Yes?" He says in that same deep voice, friendly and eager. "Do you need help finding something?" It sounds like he can't quite believe the fact. This place must not get many customers.

"Yes, if you don't mind."

His face lights up as if nothing would delight him more.

"Do you have anything on unusual mushrooms?" you ask.

The man sets down his book and slips out from behind the desk. "Hmm..." he mumbles to himself, expertly weaving between the shelves while you hurry to catch up.

"Let's see here..." he says, passing a wall draped with vines from a hanging planter, like the ones in Yoongi's lab, you notice.

"Fungi," he mutters, fingertips ghosting over the shelves. The sections under Fungi are vast and wide-ranging. Poisons & Antidotes, Moss & Lichens, Carnivorous, Aberrations.

He pauses at that last one, eyes flitting between the volumes.

"Anything specific?" he asks.

You debate on how much to disclose, but with the several cases of strange fungi in people's yards, it's probably common small town knowledge by now.

"Anything about an unusual fungus with...tendrils?" You can't help the hesitation, you're not sure if it's a common feature among mushrooms.

Apparently, it's not as unusual as you thought, because the man only nods and shifts his attention to one of the lower shelves. His slim fingers finally land on an old cloth-bound book with a red toadstool on the spine. There's no title on the cover, but the man seems to be familiar with it.

"Here you go," he says, handing it to you. "I think you'll find what you're looking for in this one."

He says it with the confidence of someone who's read every book in the building front to back. A very specific part of your brain tells you that this fact is almost certainly true.

"Thank you very much," you say, turning the book over in your hands.

"My pleasure," he replies, and means it.

"How much?"

He guides you back to the counter and rings it up for a very good price.

You're itching to ask questions, but you're not sure where to start.

The man places the book into a brown paper bag printed with Magic Shop Books and Oddities and hands it to you with a warm smile.

You lose your nerve and take the bag in silence. Then, as if he could smell the fragmented thoughts darting around in your skull, he says, "Be careful in the woods."

You look at him. There's the same friendly smile, but now with a hint of good-natured curiosity.

"If you're going mushroom hunting, I mean," he adds.

You stare at him for perhaps too long.

"Thanks," you say, dropping a generous tip into the jar next to the register.

"Hope to see you again," he calls out as you exit through the front door.

A moth to flame, bees to honey. Insert: you to coffee shops with perfect ambient lighting. You spot it just as you're leaving the narrow alley that leads to the bookshop.

Turning the corner onto a cobblestone walkway, you catch sight of the cafe windows, slick with the recent rain. But from what you can see through the glass, it looks like a warm, cozy place.

Glancing at the front door, you notice an OPEN sign, even though it's quite late. You're opening the door and stepping inside before you're even conscious of it.

The interior reflects the same aged aesthetic as the exterior, dark wood and brick and brass accents. But the kitchen area houses clean chrome appliances, and there are shelves stacked with white dishes behind them. Golden light warms a glass case fully stocked with a manner of pastries, breads, and other nibbles, all of which still seem to be steaming hot.

You immediately decide that you like this place.

"Good evening," a pleasant voice calls, though you can't yet identify the speaker.

The smell of steam and freshly-ground coffee beans becomes richer as you approach the counter. You can hear someone puttering around in the back room.

You glance at the menu's wide selection, and when you look back at the counter, a man is standing right in front of you.

You don't scare easily, but it's enough to make you jump a little.

"What can I get you?" the man asks cheerfully. He's tall and slim, wearing a white button-up and black slacks under an apron. Brown hair, dark eyes, and a full smiling mouth.

You order a coffee and a pastry.

"What time do you close?" you ask, wanting to sit down and enjoy the atmosphere but also not wanting to be the asshole that settles in just before closing.

"On Wednesdays we close at noon, otherwise we're open twenty-four hours," he replies, sounding delighted by rather than annoyed by the fact.

A twenty-four hour coffee shop? You really like this place.

He must see your eyebrows raise in surprise, because then he proudly adds, "Only one in town."

Pleasantly surprised, you look around the shop to assess the seating options. There are booths tucked along the walls, a few tables and chairs, and a few plush-looking armchairs near the windows.

"Please, have a seat and make yourself at home. I enjoy the company," the man says as he makes your drink.

You take him up on it, settling into one of the chairs by the frosted glass of the window. It's then that you take a closer look at the book the shop owner recommended.

A fraying cloth-bound cover, a red toadstool instead of a title. Inside, a table of contents. First, a bit of basic mycology, which you greatly benefit from. Immediately after, a range of mutations, circumstances, and environmental factors that caused the direct disturbance to said mycology.

You get lost in it quite easily, sipping your drink (which is expertly brewed) and nibbling your pastry (which is almost too delicious for words). You know that you'll be spending a considerable amount of time here throughout your stay in Farrow's End.

The book cites several case studies, all suggesting that a new strain of fungus is not only spreading rapidly, but infecting all other strains it has access to.

You read on, only momentarily distracted by the occasional customers that enter into the establishment. Like the group of students, most likely from the University, who order a large batch of espresso to-go. Or the old man who orders a sandwich and black coffee and sits outside despite the late-night chill.

You don't realize it, but you read on until the early morning. The first few faint, pale rays of sunlight stretch across your current page through the window, and you jerk to attention when you realize what time it is.

Not that you have somewhere in particular to be today. But you've always liked to get a jump on things early on in the investigation. And you have better luck getting interviews during the day.

You had no idea that time was passing so quickly. This place seems to have an air of particular tranquility, the kind that only a handful of coffee shops are able to achieve. It's the feeling of finding a quiet place after being overstimulated for hours.

You take your dishes to the counter, drop a tip into the jar, and step into the morning chill.

Exhaustion sets in on the journey home, and you crash moments after your head hits the pillow.

The dreams start that night.

a/n: thanks so much for reading!! love to hear any of ur thoughts 👉👈

next chapter

[pcttrailsidereader]

Oh Yes!?...Oh No!?

I can recall two among many images walking the Pacific Crest Trail. One of those is the vast clearcut landscape near Snoqualmie Pass back in 1981 and walking through miles and miles of burnt out forests in California in 2018 and 2019. Seeing these impacts in person have never left me. In the middle of that range of years the Forest Service put into place the Northwest Forest Plan. The plan was enacted in 1994 and included 24 million acres across federal land. The intent was to preserve mature and old-growth forests and protect species, including the marbled murrelet, salmon and the northern spotted owl.

The Biden administration has begun a process to update the plan. This update would address changes that include the loss of nearly 7% of protected old-growth forest within the plan area because of wildfire. The loss has eliminated gains of old growth that were achieved during the first 25 years of the plan.

Existing Northwest Forest Plan area

The Forest Service wants to issue a final environmental impact statement (EIS) on the proposed amendments in 2025, under the imminent Trump administration. What the impact of that will be are not totally clear.

Wildfire in old growth forests is sure to increase due to climate change and a long history of fire suppression that has added to forest density and fuels throughout the plan area. The plan area impacts forests from the Canadian border south to just north of San Francisco...encompassing large parts of the PCT.

The public has until March 17 to comment on the Forest Services draft EIS on proposed amendments. Some potential positives in the draft amendments include long overdue tribal co-stewardship in implementing managment practices, along with other reforms to enhance the relationship between tribes and the national forests on their ancestral lands. Tribes were not consulted back in 1994 when the original NW Forest Plan was put into place.

The proposed changes would also greatly increase logging, burning and thinning within the national forests in the plan areas. For the past three decades trees 80-120 years old in national forests west of the Cascades within the plan area, including Olympic (not along the PCT), Mount Baker-Snoqualmie and Gifford Pinchot national forests have been off limits to logging. Under the proposed changes these areas would be open to logging for restoration and economic benefits to rural communities.

Within this expansive area are trees that are nearly 200 years old. These giants could also be logged for the purpose of ecological restoration. Trees older than 200 years would be off limits to logging in most circumstances.

Forests east of the Cascades in the plan area would also be open for burning, mechanical thinning and cutting for both restoration and to provide jobs for timber workers and mills. The volunteer federal advisory committee that included scientists, tribes, and academics had a goal in mind when they drafted the amendments. The amendments east and west of the Cascades are meant to create more economic opportunity for rural communities while making forests more resilient to increased fires frequency and severity of those fires.

Whether or not economics, fire/forest management are the key drivers in the proposed amendments is open to discussion. We know that fire is natural in forests. The goal of the amendment appears to also bring fire back where it has been suppressed and to tame risk by removing fuel where forest have gotten too dense. Differentiating between moist and dry forest types and young and old forests, with more logging recommended in younger and drier forests.

Ryan Talbot, Pacific Northwest conservation advocate for Wild Earth Guardians, suggests that fire is being used to justify more cutting. He says, "Fire is kind of being used a means to do more logging with a lot of code words like restoration and resiliency." Public meetings on the plan amendments outlined in the draft EIS begin in January. The Forest Service has published a calendar of meeting times and locations, links to webinars, tips on how to comment and a draft EIS (DEIS) document library in its most recent newsletter about the plan amendment.

Your thoughts and feelings about the amendment are important. If you have walked anywhere in the west, including the PCT, you have witnessed the effects of logging and fire. With each hiking season on the PCT being more and more impacted by climate change and subsequent fires is reason enough to weigh in on the DEIS. We hope you will consider adding your voice. The images of vast clearcuts and greyed out acre upon acre of burnt forest land has never left my memory. For the short time we are here on the planet maybe we can influence the life of forests along the PCT long after we have hiked our last mile and taken our final breath leaving a thriving landscape for those coming behind us.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

A federal court approved an agreement today between the Center for Biological Diversity, scientist Stuart Pimm, Ph.D., and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that requires the agency to reexamine the harms caused by offshore oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico to birds, manatees, nesting sea turtles and other threatened and endangered species.

The agreement resolves a lawsuit filed in April over the agency’s failure to comply with the Endangered Species Act by not adequately assessing the harms of oil spills, light pollution, vessel strikes and greenhouse gas emissions from Gulf drilling.

“Every new offshore well is another toxic threat to marine wildlife, so I’m glad federal officials will consider looking at these harms before greenlighting more Gulf oil drilling,” said David Derrick, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “I’m relieved that they may finally consider the absolute havoc that a huge spill like Deepwater Horizon would wreak on endangered animals living in and around the Gulf, which is a scenario they’ve overlooked so far.”

In a new assessment, called a biological opinion, the Service has agreed to consider whether to analyze certain effects including large oil spills, sea-level rise, greenhouse gas emissions and lighting from oil and gas platforms and infrastructure.

“The endangered sea turtles and birds living in the Gulf have already been dealing with noise, oil spills and harsh lights,” said Stuart Pimm, Ph.D., Doris Duke professor of conservation ecology at Duke University. “Now these animals also have to fight to survive rising seas, more extreme storms and changing habitats, all worsened by the oil drilling going on around them. The agencies in charge of protecting these species should at least acknowledge the harmful new reality that fossil fuel extraction is contributing to.”

The Service is required under the Act to complete a consultation with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement on oil and gas operations that could affect threatened and endangered species under the Service’s jurisdiction. These species include manatees, nesting Kemp’s ridley and green sea turtles, whooping cranes and piping plovers, among others.

The agreement requires the agency to complete its new analysis by March 28, 2025.

[fatehbaz]

In the late 18th century, [...] Lahaina carried such an abundance of water that early explorers reportedly anointed it “Venice of the Pacific”. A glut of natural wetlands nourished breadfruit trees, extensive taro terraces and fishponds that sustained wildlife and generations of Native Hawaiian families.

But more than a century and a half of plantation agriculture, driven by American and European colonists, have depleted Lahaina’s streams and turned biodiverse food forests into tinderboxes. Today, Hawaii spends $3bn a year importing up to 90% of its food. This altered ecology, experts say, gave rise to the 8 August blaze that decimated the historic west Maui town and killed more than 111 people.

“The rise of plantation capital spawned the drying of the west side of Maui,” said Kamana Beamer, a historian and a former member of the Hawaii commission on water resource management [...].

---

[S]ugar and pineapple white magnates began arriving on the islands in the early 1800s. For much of the next two centuries, Maui-based plantation owners like Alexander & Baldwin and Maui Land & Pineapple Company reaped enormous fortunes, uprooting native trees and extracting billions of gallons of water from streams to grow their thirsty crops. (Annual sugar cane production averaged 1m tons until the mid-1980s; a pound of sugar requires 2,000lb of freshwater to produce.)

Invasive plants that were introduced as livestock forage, like guinea grass, now cover a quarter of Hawaii’s surface area. The extensive use of pesticides on Maui’s pineapple fields poisoned nearby water wells. The dawn of large-scale agriculture dramatically changed land practices in Maui, where natural resources no longer served as a mode of food production or a habitat for birds but a means of generating fast cash, said Lucienne de Naie, an east Maui historian [...].

“The land was turned from this fertile plain – with these big healthy trees, wetland taros and dryland crops like banana and breadfruit – to a mass of monoculture: to rows and rows of sugar cane, and rows and rows of pineapple,” she said.

---

The Great Māhele of 1848, a ground-breaking law that legitimized private land ownership, laid the ground for big developers to hoard water for profit, said Jonathan Likeke Scheuer, a water policy consultant and co-author of the book Water and Power in West Maui. [...] [T]he creation of private property allowed agricultural corporations to wield “political and ultimately oligarchic power” over elected officials. In 1893, a group of sugar magnates and capitalists overthrew the Hawaiian Kingdom’s Queen Liliuokalani, paving the way for the US to annex Hawaii five years later. Sanford Ballard Dole, a cousin of Dole Plantation’s founder, served as the first governor of Hawaii.

When the last of the sugar companies closed in 2016 [...], Scheuer said, the farms were purchased by large investors for real estate speculation and left fallow, overrun with invasive grasses that became fuel for brush fires. Developers [...] took control of the plantations’ century-old irrigation ditches and diverted water to service its luxury subdivisions. In doing so, it left scraps for Indigenous families who lived downstream. [...] [O]n Maui, 16 of the top 20 water users are resorts, time-shares and short-term condominium rentals equipped with emerald golf courses and glittering pools [...].

---

Text by: Claire Wang. "How 19th-century pineapple plantations turned Maui into a tinderbox". The Guardian. 27 August 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[onlyqueeronlytruth]

Have you heard about this project?

🌈"PRIDE BANK"🌈: An inclusive bank for a united community

Built on the principles of inclusivity, respect and equality, Pride Bank is a revolutionary banking project designed to meet the specific needs of LGBTQ+ people. Conceived in 2018, this ambitious project aims to offer an inclusive financial alternative, allowing everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, to access essential banking services.

A bank without discrimination Pride Bank promises to put an end to the financial discrimination often experienced by members of the LGBTQ+ community. It commits to:

Offering banking without discrimination, allowing the opening of bank accounts simply and securely. Offering equitable access to credit, in particular to finance personal and professional projects, or steps such as transition operations. Supporting LGBTQ+ entrepreneurship by providing suitable financial tools and actively supporting initiatives led by members of the community.

A Dual Global Location Pride Bank plans a dual headquarters to embody its global mission:

🇺🇸Silicon Valley, California: A symbol of technological innovation and inclusion. 🇧🇷São Paulo, Brazil: A strategic stepping stone to serve Latin America, where the 🌈LGBTQ+ community🌈 faces unique challenges but also immense potential for economic development.

A vision for 2026-2027 The project, currently in the reflection phase, is facing many challenges, particularly due to global political upheavals. The inauguration of Donald Trump has slowed down certain aspects of development in the United States, but Pride Bank remains determined to see the light of day in 2027, by integrating innovative solutions to bypass regulatory and societal obstacles.

Technological and sustainable ambitions Relying on modern technologies such as blockchain to secure transactions and artificial intelligence to personalize services, Pride Bank also aims to integrate sustainable practices, by committing to minimizing its carbon footprint and supporting ecological projects led by the LGBTQ+ community.

A project in co-creation with the community Pride Bank wishes to actively involve the LGBTQ+ community in its creation process. Consultations will be organized to identify priority needs and co-construct truly adapted financial services.

Towards a new era of inclusive financial services By placing people and equality at the heart of its model, Pride Bank aspires to become much more than a bank: a true life partner, committed to the economic and social emancipation of the LGBTQ+ community. Stay connected for this bold adventure. Together, let's make Pride Bank a real reality and not a fantasy!🌈

[hedgewitchgarden]

By Julia Kane. April 27, 2023. On an overcast Saturday in March, Serina Fast Horse stands in a ring of freshly planted, 12-foot-tall willow cuttings. Soft white buds are just beginning to emerge from their gray stems.

Easing the tips of the willows toward the center of the circle, Fast Horse holds them in place while another volunteer ties them together with twine.

Fast Horse and about three dozen others have gathered at Shwakuk Wetland, five acres of land situated between a residential neighborhood and a freight warehouse in north Portland, just south of Columbia Edgewater Country Club.

In time, the trees they plant and gently shape will grow into a willow dome—a living structure people can gather around for ceremonies, educational programs or just to enjoy the space.

Shwakuk, which is pronounced “show-kayk” and means little frog in Chinook Wawa, is a unique site co-managed by the local Indigenous community and Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services.

When the city acquired the land in 2016, it was a pumpkin patch.

Since then, the team responsible for stewarding it has worked to restore the wetland. Now it’s used to to cultivate first foods, medicines and basketry plants.

It’s also reconnecting area residents with the land.

Fast Horse, who is Lakota and Blackfeet, serves as a community liaison on the Shwakuk project, bridging the gap between the local Indigenous community and city employees.

Since getting involved with the project, the 28-year-old Portlander has also gone on to found Kimímela Consulting. Her goal is to bring the Indigenous community into environmental decision-making processes at the city and state level.

“When we’re able to come together and uplift Indigenous knowledge—and learn from each other, too, because there are things from western science and ecology that are important for restoration—we can change these systems to be more regenerative,” says Fast Horse.

“Indigenizing” not “de-colonizing”

For Fast Horse, the choice to use the word Indigenize rather than decolonize is intentional.

“When we say Indigenize, it’s centering the Indigenous perspective and being forward-thinking instead of centering colonization and that experience,” she says. 

In restoration work, the Indigenous perspective hasn’t often been taken into consideration.

“Our program has always used native plants, but the selection wasn’t necessarily based on the Indigenous communities’ needs or desires,” says Toby Query, a natural resource ecologist with Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services. “It was more about what would survive and what would fulfill our agency’s goals as far as shading the water, wildlife habitat and structure, and so forth.”

At Shawkuk, the Indigenous community put together a list of desired plants, which included first foods, medicines and plants used for traditional crafts.

That list has guided Query and the rest of the team involved in day-to-day restoration work at the site.

So far, they’ve had success at growing tule, a sedge used in basketry and canoe-making, along with yarrow, a medicinal plant, and camas, a plant with an edible, bulb-like root. They’ve also planted yampah, a wild carrot.

Instead of spraying herbicide, the restoration team uses vinyl from old billboards to block the sun and kill invasive grasses. Sometimes, they’ll braid invasive grasses around native plants, like yellow dock, horsetail and cattail, so that they stay low to the ground and do not choke out other plants.

“It takes a lot of effort to do it,” says Query, who has spent many hours braiding reed canarygrass alongside workers from Wisdom of the Elders, an Indigenous-led group. “While we were doing it we were enjoying conversation, and it was kind of a healing process.”

Query has implemented many techniques he’s learned from the Indigenous community at the 20 or so sites he stewards across the city.

“It’s really informed what I plant, and how I take care of plants,” he says.

Tending parties, wild tea

Healing is a critical element of Indigenizing restoration work.

In fact, says Fast Horse, “my deepest wish for this work is to bring folks together and to heal our relationships to each other and to the earth.”

At Shwakuk, she’s brought people together by helping organize “tending parties” that attract members of the local Indigenous community, students from Portland State University, city employees and others.

The groups learn about a site, spend a few hours helping with a restoration project and gather for lunch.

Oftentimes, Judy BlueHorse Skelton, an assistant professor at Portland State University who has helped lead the Shwakuk restoration, will make tea for everyone.

She makes the tea using a sprig of Doug fir gathered onsite, and sometimes rosehips, Oregon grape and western redcedar.

“We’re taught that to sip tea together is to become a relative, or to form a relationship,” says BlueHorse Skelton, who is Nez Perce and Cherokee. “It’s also deepening our intimate relationship with the plant world. It’s a big part of Indigenous traditional ecological and cultural knowledge, and it’s embedded in the work that we’re all doing.”

Intern to owner

Restoring Shwakuk was pivotal for Fast Horse, who first got involved with the project as an intern with Environmental Services.

“I was able to be an internal advocate to make sure what the community was saying was being upheld in a really meaningful way,” says Fast Horse. “I would be in these internal meetings, and so that perspective got woven throughout the process.”

In those meetings, the impact that she could have as a community liaison became clear.

From Query’s point of view: “To have somebody that has an Indigenous perspective, but is also willing to be part of the agency side of things, and to be able to walk between those two cultures has been really important.”

Fast Horse began giving presentations about lessons learned from Shwakuk and found that other city agencies and organizations wanted Indigenous input on their projects, too.

Portland has recently become more proactive about reaching out to the Indigenous community. The city hired its first full-time tribal relations director, Laura John, in 2017—a move BlueHorse Skelton says has been “immensely transformative.”

Two years ago, Fast Horse founded her own company, Kimímela Consulting, based in Milwaukie, Ore. She’s continued to act as a liaison between the Indigenous community and various agencies and organizations.

Most of her work has to do with land restoration, but she’s also working with Portland State University to rename a street. The campus’ Native American Student and Community Center is currently located on a street named after President Andrew Jackson, known for enforcing the genocidal Indian Removal Act of 1830.

“She’s been providing a voice and venue for the Indigenous community, including students and folks across all agencies, to get involved—including just the average community member who may not have a voice,” says BlueHorse Skelton.

A reconnected future

According to BlueHorse Skelton, the work that Fast Horse is doing to ensure the Indigenous community is part of decision-making processes is critical.

“When cities look, today, at how to heal, how to begin to restore, how to protect what’s left,” says BlueHorse Skelton, “we have to be part of it.” 

She sees Fast Horse as the first of a new, emerging generation of Indigenous leaders in the region.

“As some of us become elders, who carries that work forward?” BlueHorse Skelton asks. “That’s Serina.”

“A lot of times people put us in the past, and that’s a huge misconception,” says Fast Horse. “We’ve always been adaptable people. We’re not trying to revert back to anything, we’re going into the future.

“We’re all interconnected in this physical and spiritual plane. With Indigenous knowledge, we can reconnect to that and live in a way that is more in line with natural systems that are regenerative and life-giving.”

[maplemouse-warriors]

its twin flames tuesday friday

i want to be more consistently posting about twin flames because i AM working on it often, so on tuesdays i'm going to post an update on what i've been chewing on. dont mind how its not tuesday, its fine

this twin flames tuesday will include updates on the following:

Location

Naming System

Clan Structure

BloodClan

Territory Powers

Location

When thinking about what I like in regard to the places in Warriors, I really enjoy the variability. I like that the Clans have such distinct territories, and I like that there's a huge mountain range! I like that SkyClan lives in a river gorge! And I like the different challenges that each location can present, from terrain difficulties to new kinds of predator.

So when I decided to model the Clans' home on a real region, an area that preserved a lot of what I enjoyed of canon was the Northern Cascades, in the Cascadia region of North America. The Northern Cascades National Park has a wealth of information on plants, animals, and biomes in this region, making information easy to find. (I like to peruse the lists of various flora and fauna provided by the US National Park Service provided on the National Park's website. This is my pro-tip for naming cats with ecologically accurate names!)

The Clans in Twin Flames officially live within this region now!

Naming System

A bit more involved, I want to get funky with the structure of naming here. For fun! A fuller write-up of how these names work will probably be somewhere down the line (and can be made higher priority if anyone asks about it), but for now, I have renamed all of Arc One ThunderClan. Some family tree shuffles are included in this. Some of my favorite renames are below:

Star Bright Blue Moon (Bluestar)

Pale Willow Petal (Willowpelt)

Small Mouse Burr (Mousefur)

Star Blistering Sand Storm (Sandstorm)

Wild Flame Blazing (Wildflame / Princess)

Noble Golden Flower (Goldenflower; initially named for the golden eagle)

Strong Cinder Glow (Cinderpelt)

Dry Rustling Bracken (Brackenfur)

Storm Freckled Fern (Ferncloud)

Soft Coot Fur (Sootfur)

Clan Structure

I like keeping most roles fairly fluid, allowing them to be added and removed as a Clan sees fit. However, to add more leadership for a cat to aspire to, I'm adding a Council to each Clan. This mainly provides structure to the 'senior warriors being consulted' aspect of canon, although the method of choosing Council members likely changes Clan to Clan, and potentially leader to leader. WindClan's medicine cat appoints members to the Council, whereas in SkyClan Council members would be voted on. This is in progress, still hammering out the details here.

BloodClan

First off, transfem Scourge. I think Scourge is neat, and this is the highest honor I can bestow.

BloodClan starts as a tight-knit group of strays, and eventually grows to a protection racket/mafia as the Twolegs become more and more hostile to the stray cats in town. They do truly protect people, although the price is much too high.

Scourge herself is born to a ShadowClan cat who left the Clan (still working out exactly WHY she left - I'm thinking either she was in a half-Clan relationship and caught, or she simply chose to leave once Brokenstar started training kits), who is renamed Quince when she is fostered by Nutmeg's owners. Tiny is raised as Rusty and Princess' dear childhood friend, until they join the Clans, and he thinks he will never see them again.

Territory Powers

I am giving the cats magic powers. All of them. These Territory Powers are born out of a community caring for the territory they live on. Proper stewardship and love for the land that a group calls home grants them with a gift. Each cat has a small well of power that they can use in various ways, although if they drain the resource completely, they'll need to wait for it to recharge. Each Clan has 3 different abilities, suited to the Clan's culture and territory. These are gotten based on the territory a cat grows up in, and may change if they move to a new place. For example, when Wild moves from Wind to Thunder, her partially-developed WindClan abilities become newly-acquired ThunderClan abilities after she's stayed for a while. Complete write-ups of these abilities will come in a later Clan Culture post, although if there's a Clan or group you want to hear about sooner, feel free to ask :3

[nadiegesabate1990]

A crowd of protesters takes to the streets of Seattle, in the United States, and prevents the opening of the 3rd Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization. The millennium comes to an end with protests against globalization and neo-protectionism in rich countries.

On November 30th, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was preparing to deliver the opening speech at the 3rd Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the so-called "Millennium Round". But Albright could do nothing. Shortly before the event began, a storm would sweep through Seattle. At Pike Place Market, just a few miles from the city's commercial center, a crowd began to gather. According to an environmental activist from the NGO Sierra Clube, at 6 am there were more than 10,000 people gathered at the site - some dressed as sea turtles.

Nearby, in the Memorial Stadium parking lot, over 20,000 trade unionists were meeting, including representatives of unions and associations from different countries, including the CUT and Força Sindical, from Brazil. Finally, the two groups, armed with posters and plaques and many of their members in costume, marched determinedly towards the Convention Center where the WTO meeting would take place, shouting in defense of ecology and subsidies and against globalization. The super demonstration brought together people of all stripes - environmentalists, right-wingers, paranoids, neo-Nazis, anarchists, religious people and various left-wing groups.

The congestion was enormous, stranding the limousines of the big shots and the vans intended for the bodyguards. In the vicinity of the Westin hotel, where the North American delegation had stayed, there were at least 5 thousand people surrounding the visitors. The city hall, evidently, placed riot troops on the streets and tried to contain the crowd with tear gas bombs. There were fights, police beating and dragging people through the streets. By Friday the 3rd, there were 500 prisoners and 40 injured, including a police officer in serious condition.

It was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration, assured the main organizers, the AFL-CIO union and a coalition of ecological groups. But this was not what young, more radical anarchists intended. For months, kilograms of announcements about the storm had been being sent via the Internet. The scenario for confusion, therefore, was already properly designed, and at 10:30 am it was already known that the opening of the WTO meeting was compromised. Furthermore, the police were not adequately prepared to maintain order. As for the big shots, they were also warned by the Secret Service about what could happen.

At 8:30 pm that Tuesday, the confusion escalated to such an extent that it became out of control. Supposed anarchists began burning trash cans and stacking mailboxes; Then the riots (window windows, large stores) and graffiti began. The situation became critical and Mayor Paulo Schell declared a state of emergency, called in the National Guard and instituted a curfew, a regime that would be extended until the weekend. Trade unionist John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, said in an interview with the magazine: "What unites us all here is the fact that the WTO makes decisions in the absence of civil society." Meanwhile, the United States' chief negotiator, Charlenne Barshefsky, agreed with the protesters, who accused the organization of being just a body where decisions are made secretly, behind closed doors and without democratic consultation.

On Thursday, President Clinton, before speaking to WTO representatives, told the farmers' association that free trade is something that could be good for everyone and that the government would fight for the international organization's decisions to be made. in a clearer way and with the participation of civil society interest groups.

[nagdabbit]

WRITE A BEAUTY AND THE BEAST AU, SHE SAID. IT'LL BE FUN, SHE SAID.

Anyhow. Please tell me some worldbuildy bits that aren't making it into the written story but are things you know to be canon in-universe.

LORE! WORLD BUILDING! MY BELOVED!

okay, so this one is small and i left it out of my past lore drops about why regal would have a nigel in the first place, and it's kinda vaguely alluded to but not fully. its pointless and it doesn't matter, except that it matters so much cuz its a thing that has exacerbated all of the shit that's flowed down from the mountain, and it's kinda one of the like. it was the keystone moment when the story got Too Big and became the heap of sadness it is today..

so, everyone knows the basic ag concept of fallowing. the idea of leaving land unsown for a season or so to help return vitality to the land to avoid having a shitty harvest, or in some cases to avoid having a surplus of crop that's gonna go to waste. also very common, and STILL IMPORTANT, in pasture grazing. very, very common farming technique in general, but p mush the default medieval times.

the use of cover crops also came into prominence at that time. cover crops are less about harvesting and more to manage erosion, soil fertility, pests and weeds, biodiversity and add a lot of nitrogen to the soil.

yuta and danny's village? they use neither of these techniques in their farming.

see, they have a mage to manage the fertility of the land. they have a bad season? oops, no they don't, nigel just has to touch grass and it's all better and everyone can eat. kings and counts may buy the services of a druid, so it's not an uncommon practice to have a magic man around, but regal having a war mage around to do a druid's work? suspect

so this is a town that either grazes away the remnants of old harvests, or burns it away, before planting the same crop in the same fields, with no healing time between.

so the curse? it wasn't just that it hit bryan and his people, it was an ecological disaster, and one that happened without the knowledge of the village below. the curse was cast, nigel was no longer in the business of keeping the land ripe, and over time that magic would fade. as the death rolled down the mountainside, the remnants of nigels magic would fade completely, and no one noticed until it was too late. by the time harvests grew worse and the drought dragged on, no one remembered a time before. no one thought to consult any records, see what they'd done before regal brought in a mage to keep things growing

all they ever remembered was burning, and when that stopped working, they kept on doing it because they didnt know any better

[the-war-is-over]

Forge Pyramid Staff

[ From The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye #5, "How Ratchet Got His Hands Back" ]

The Forge Pyramid's staff is constantly in flux. There are some full-time faculty, but most of the instructors are there on a temporary basis, and are primarily volunteers invested in the growth and education of these sparklings*. Most of these volunteers sign up for a certain length of time in which they help teach a class or assist in some other capacity, though there are bots with more restrictive schedules who only pop in for a day here and there when they can.

Additionally, bots may be called in on consultation, especially for medical reasons. Skarr -- the Medical Director for the Forge Pyramid -- is a permanent fixture, but like the rest of the Pyramid's staff, the doctors tend to fluctuate. There are some Blacksmiths that work primarily with the Forge Pyramid, and some from other colony worlds assisting temporarily. While most medics have a "home clinic", those on the hospital's payroll are required to take shifts at the other locations from time to time, so that they bolster their experience with all parts of the community.

Another reason bots find themselves working at the Forge Pyramid is as a part of community service. In certain cases, bots that find themselves on the wrong side of the law will be allowed to "do their time" by helping the community they (allegedly) harmed. Those who come to work as instructors are not differentiated from the regular volunteers, though if you know what you're looking for, there are certain... tells. Also, some will just flat-out tell the students themselves.

Though there are certain subjects the Forge Pyramid strives to cover in their "curriculum", the structure and content of the classes are largely left up to the instructors. At present, the following classes and their instructors are:

Vocational Skills -- Hoist & Mixmaster

The Arts -- Jazz & Sky-Byte

Self-Defense -- Dinobot & Kup**

Cybertronian History -- Arcee** & Omega Supreme**

Science & Medicine -- Arcana, Brainstorm, Highbrow, & Xort

Space Travel & Galactography -- Astrotrain & Sky-Lynx

Cybertronian Religion -- Aileron & Rhinox

Interpersonal Skills -- Horri-Bull & Needlenose

Social Climate & Culture -- Bumblebee & Windblade

Ecology -- Beachcomber & Tigatron

Economics -- Swindle & Wreck-Gar

Professional Development & Leadership -- Deathsaurus & Thunderclash

Sociology -- Drift & Rodimus

Other staff of note:

Headmaster -- Arcee**

Trypticon Representative -- Slug**

Security -- The Dinobots** (& Trypticon**)

Medical Director -- Skarr**

Blacksmiths -- Anode** (w/ assistant Lug**), Cabbage Patch**, Hot Shot (in-training), Humblebumper**, Lightbright, Wing (in-training)

Medical Staff -- CatSCAN** (diagnostics), Electroprobe (surgeon, on rotation), Kaput (spark specialist, on consultation), Spinister (surgeon, on rotation)

Alt-Mode Experts -- (Sailor) Mirage**, Rewind

*Note: The terms "sparklings" or "newsparks" refer to a young bot, particularly one fresh from the Pyramid. Bots come online as physically-matured, fully-sentient specimens, not "babies" or "children" in the way humans do. While there are developmental stages a Cybertronian goes through from spark to bot, they are not sentient during this time.

**Denotes full-time staff member.

[movability]

With cities expanding worldwide and becoming more densely populated, mobility leaders must devise solutions to reduce traffic congestion, optimize routes more effectively and lower ecological impact - one being smart mobility.

To Know More Read Our Blog Here:- https://feedingtrends.com/top-urban-mobility-consulting-services

[glitchlight]

You do dirt science??? How? I want to do that

When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronomer, and got an opportunity to try some astronomy coursework in high school, and found out I hated it because although I'm pretty smart, and decently good at math, I'm not that good at math, and I found the mundane rather disappointing; and so "hey I'll do environmental science instead"

I went to college for it, and as a quirk of how american universities are run, a lot of universities will have competing environmental science programs within the College of Sciences and the College of Agriculture (or equivalents). By a quirk of fate, I happened to choose the college of ag at undergrad and found I really really enjoyed soil science; I like how it's the confluence of geology, chemistry, and physics, and how specifically when it comes to environmental pollutants, soil is both pathway and reservoir. I also went to grad school, focusing in on environmental soil chemistry, and did research regarding it, but grad school is really stressful and I was presenting as female for the first time and dealing with a really tumultuous personal issues that sort of impeded my immediate career afterwards and producing research, but I don't wholly regret it either.

Regardless, here I am after a very lengthy period of underemployment and unemployment later, and I work as an environmental consultant, doing environmental investigations for an engineering company. It's not a perfect job, but I really enjoy what I do, it's not bullshit work, I'm good at it, and I like solving these kinds of problems. That said, I may have to go back to school a bit, because as it turns out, the industry heavily favors geologists over soil scientists, and I don't have enough credits to get a certification for a professional geologist; but that's another topic!

If you are interested in soil science, I think in general there's four or five main ways that you can go with that, namely agriculture/soil fertility, environmental education and outreach (both of the former being encompassed by county extension services and research performed by land grant universities and the NRCS), academic research (don't recommend!! fun to do modeling and learn about complex processes but academia is vision of hell presented by npr), environmental consulting/remediation (hello!), government/regulatory work. There's also interdisciplinary cross training with other disciplines where soil is a significant focus, such as mycology, entomology, ecology, and botany.

Now, as it currently stands, there's a pretty big problem with environmental scientists having underemployment issues, but that's not any different from other millennials; it took me six years to get a full time job in my field, and every day I'm grateful for it. At the same time, I don't regret my college background, and I can't blame myself for what happened in between. I was always going to have those crises I think. If you do pursue college, I highly recommend you think about what you'd like to do with your degree early, and go into your college experience prepared to network, make friends, and look for internship and employment opportunities; it can be hard to find them!

However, I think soil science doesn't necessarily have to be something formal. Read about soil genesis, soil orders, go out and dig some holes and practice soil profiling. It can be a fun hobby that informs community or personal gardening! And being able to tell people how different and valuable soil is matters no matter whether you have a piece of paper in four years or not!