Submitted by the Island Stewards.

What is it you love about living in the islands? What do you want to protect? What does the future hold for island residents? A new public participation project hosted by Island Stewards invites island residents to explore these and other topics to shape public goals and policies to protect the future of the San Juans.

“People who live in the islands are place-based experts. That expertise is built, day-in and day-out, by interacting with the natural world and each other. This lived wisdom, as well as aspirations for what the future could look like, can be brought forward as the guiding star of planning processes, such as the upcoming revisions to the Comprehensive Plan,” states River Sky, executive director of Island Stewards.

Island Stewards is a nonprofit county-wide organization formed in 1984 and dedicated to fostering community-based ecosystem stewardship through research, education and sustainable solutions. The Department of Commerce (WA) recently awarded Island Stewards funding to strengthen public participation toward including all the voices of islanders in the San Juan County Comprehensive Plan revision process currently underway. Island Stewards project funding runs through June 2025. Funds will be used to build and perpetuate systems to grow local collaborative wisdom to successfully steward the unfolding future of the islands.

As an organization experiencing the transition of leadership to younger generations, Island Stewards is growing in new ways to build in transformative research approaches, such as participatory action research, into the planning process. The Island Stewards Leadership Council provides the long-term, experienced-based wisdom and skills to further ground these budding developments in the deep soil of longstanding islander traditions.

After providing a thorough educational overview of what the Comprehensive Plan covers and how it works, Island Stewards will build capacity for islanders to facilitate and participate in formal and informal conversations. In these gatherings, community members will identify topics of greatest interest, and delve into shared experience and connection to inform public decisions so we can protect what matters most.

To get involved or find out more information visit www.islandstewards.org or email connect@islandstewards.org. Additionally, reach out to River Sky at 360-829-7611.