Spend an evening with Dr. Cristina Eisenberg, a community ecologist and Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence and  Director of Tribal Initiatives at Oregon State University, as part of Oregon Natural Desert Association’s 2024 High Desert Speaker Series.

Dr. Eisenberg will share learnings from her land stewardship research focused on ecocultural restoration. This event will explore how a merging of Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Western Science – a concept called Two-Eyed Seeing – can build cross-cultural partnerships and projects that conserve landscapes and elevate indigenous communities.

ONDA’s Stewardship Director, Gena Goodman-Campbell, will join to delve into the current steps ONDA is taking to restore Oregon’s high desert in partnership with local tribes.

You’ll leave this event with a better understanding of how Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Western Science can be used to create sustainable and resilient natural systems.

View the slides from this presentation.

ONDA is working to make our events as accessible as possible, and this event will feature an American Sign Language interpreter.

If you would like to attend but experience a barrier to purchasing a ticket, please contact ccekander@onda.org

Thank you to WYLD for supporting high desert conservation and sponsoring this event.

About the Presenters

Dr. Cristina Eisenberg is the Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence and Maybelle Clark Macdonald Director of Tribal Initiatives in Natural Resources at Oregon State University in the College of Forestry (CoF) and Professor of Practice. In the CoF she is the director of the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) Lab, and the Indigenous Natural Resource Office. As a Native American and Latinx ecologist, she leads several long-term ecological restoration projects, including the BLM /OSU/Fort Belknap Grassland Restoration Project on the Northern Plains of Montana, and the Pacific Northwest Tribal Conservation Corps Pilot Project for Seeds of Success, which involves working with five of the Tribal Nations in Oregon. All the projects she leads incorporate Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and best Western science into ecocultural restoration practice. She works with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the US Forest Service, the US Congress, and the Bureau of Land Management to advise them on IK and Tribal Sovereignty and how to partner with Tribal Nations. Cristina is a Director at Large on the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) Board of Directors. She leads the SER TEK Working Group and is the author of numerous books, journal articles, and book chapters.

As ONDA’s Stewardship Director, Gena Goodman-Campbell engages ONDA’s community in hands-on restoration projects that improve desert habitat in key watersheds and migration corridors. After growing up in Portland, Gena graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science from Colorado College with a focus on international conflict resolution. Drawn back home to Oregon, she joined the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group (OSPIRG) at Central Oregon Community College to organize voter mobilization campaigns, petition drives, and wilderness hikes. Gena then joined ONDA as our Badlands Wilderness Coordinator and has been with ONDA for 17 years. Gena was elected to a four-year term on the Bend City Council in November 2018 and recently concluded serving as Mayor of Bend.

Photo: John Aylward