For a visionary such as Robert Pelant, the possibilities are endless.
For nine years, he’s lived in a quaint house surrounded by pheasant coops and other plain structures on a vast piece of mostly barren land.
Where some might drive along Parker Road in Coupeville and view seemingly endless open space, Pelant sees a gold carpet of unlimited potential.
Never has that view been more clear and more exciting for Pelant than since the announcement last month that the Pacific Rim Institute for Environmental Stewardship had finalized a land deal with Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies.
By purchasing the 175 acres it had leased and managed since 2009, the Pacific Rim Institute is now able to chart its own course with Pelant, the institute’s chief executive officer, leading the way.
“Ownership greatly expands the opportunities we’ll have for education, opportunities for the public as well as opportunities for developing our place as a truly regional center for restoration,” Pelant said.
The Pacific Rim Institute will continue to partner with the Au Sable Institute by offering field-based college courses during the summer and plans to remain entrenched in various research projects, particularly in relation to native prairie species.
Aside from education and research, a major institute goal is to better identify itself with the public in Central Whidbey and extend an invitation to the greater Coupeville community to utilize its trails for outdoor activities such as hiking and birding, as well as its facilities for workshops, meetings and events.
Joseph Sheldon, board member and former Au Sable instructor who lives on property adjacent to Pacific Rim, said too many residents are in the dark about what the institute is about.
Part of the faith-based nonprofit’s mission is to work to “equip people and communities to live sustainably and care for Creation.”
What better place to practice that than Whidbey Island, he said.
“We’re looking at expanding our reach to the community in terms of being a role model of what it means to live sustainably,” Sheldon said. “We live on an island, and an island is just that. The question is how can the Pacific Rim serve as a role model for sustainable living to the rest of the community.”
Sheldon said each individual produces an ecological footprint that relates to the impact on one’s surrounding area and that people in the United States have an ecological footprint twice the size of any other country in the world.
“It’s basically not sustainable,” he said.
“The real question is how can we as individuals living in an island community minimize the amount of waste we produce and reduce our ecological footprint so we are much more self-sustaining. That’s part of the message we are sending.”
Since 2009, after Au Sable decided to shut down its Pacific Rim campus on Whidbey after 10 years, Pelant has led a fundraising effort to purchase the property.
By raising enough of its fundraising goal of $443,000 from individual donors, including receiving a no-interest loan from one individual, the Pacific Rim Institute was able to purchase the land from Au Sable Dec. 15.
Once the longtime site of Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Game Farm, where tens of thousands of pheasants were raised, the land is mostly open space but includes a section of forest, savanna and prairie lands.
Most notable is 4.5 acres of rare, undisturbed, old-growth prairie, the site of research and seed cultivation to provide native prairie species to other regional sites.
“Unfortunately, Whidbey has lost over 99 percent of its prairie ecosystem since the 1850s,” Pelant said. “Our site has one of the largest and most significant prairie remnants in the entire region.”
Prairie studies, including one by a University of Washington student earning his PHD, have been conducted on the Coupeville property with plans for much more research.
“We have 130 open acres here,” Pelant said.
The Pacific Rim Institute will hold a 2015 Prairie Open House May 7-9.
To learn more about the institute, go to www.pacificriminstitute.org
