Certified Wildlife Habitat

From IslandVision

Certify Mercer Island as a Wildlife Habitat Community

Champion: Rita Moore 275-3883, Peter Donaldson, 236-8114

BACKGROUND: Our goal is to certify the entire Mercer Island community as one connected wildlife habitat through the process offered by the National Wildlife Federation. We plan to do this by stitching together small habitat certification projects such as individual back yards, school yards, church yards, city parks, and community gardens and green spaces, educating every citizen about the integration of wildlife in our urban lives.

Learn about the four basic elements that wildlife need and how you can create a Certified Wildlife Habitat right in your own back yard through the National Wildlife Federation.

Register online here. Schools can also become certified as Wildlife habitat. So can park systems and entire communities. Tukwila was the first community in Washington to earn community-wide certification. Camano Island was second, Lake Forest Park, third. Six other Washington communities have registered and are working toward earning their points. Learn more about community-wide certification here. Also take a moment to explore Rita Moore's excellent website http://miparks.org/

NEXT STEPS

1. Encourage all IslandVision participants to certify and to spread the word.

2. Support the city in filling out certification forms for each of the parks.

3. Support the student council and PTA of each school to learn about and fill out certification forms for schoolyards, gardens and encourage every student to help their parents in certifying their own yards.

4. Support Emanuel Church and other places of worship to fill out certification forms for churchyards and encourage their congregations to certifying their own yards.

5. Get data updates from the National Wildlife Federation on how many yards are certified and provide updates to IslandVision list-serve.

6. Create a feature article in the MI Reporter to broaden awareness.

7. Promote the Native Plant Society Annual Plant Sale, May 12 in Bellevue.