About Town: Redmond Native Launches Community Environmental Effort

Rianne BeCraft exudes youthful energy. The recent Western Washington University environmental science graduate has decided to bring that enthusiasm back to her hometown of Redmond, where she’s launching an effort to help Redmond become a Community Wildlife Habitat.

The certification is done through the National Wildlife Federation, where BeCraft, 23, is serving as an AmeriCorps member for 10 months, and she has taken on the project as a community action requirement she must complete as part of that service.

“Habitat loss is the number one thing threatening wildlife,” BeCraft said, adding that certified wildlife habitats created by individuals and communities serve to “create corridors, like stepping stones for wildlife.”

BeCraft currently is aiming to assemble a team of residents in Redmond who would be part of the certification process, helping to educate the public at events and to get support from local officials. She’ll be holding a meeting for interested participants at the , at 15990 NE 85th St., on July 21 at 6:30 p.m. She would like to find a co-team leader, along with a number of volunteers.

To become certified as a community, the point-based system includes recognition for a variety of efforts, such as the number of individual households and public spaces that become certified (even a balcony can be a certified wildlife habitat if it has water, places for nesting, and a food source, BeCraft said), community outreach and education, among other things.

The project is a good fit for BeCraft because she’s working as an education outreach coordination intern at the National Wildlife Federation’s Seattle office, where she does outreach for the Eco-Schools and Certified Wildlife Habitat programs. She is very familiar with the details of the work and has experience already in getting the word out to community groups and schools.

BeCraft, whose family owns and operates the in Redmond, said that when she returned home from college she knew she wanted to find a way to reconnect with the community while also working at the family business and saving money for her next adventure.

“Every time I come back, I see that there’s constant construction, so I see this as something that can help Redmond’s wildlife. I really like being in the leadership group of people and making things happen,” she said.

BeCraft is certain that she will eventually move on to take on other projects, and she’d like to travel more, after having gotten a taste on a study abroad trip to Ecuador. Although BeCraft is happy for now to be the lead on the Community Wildlife Habitat project, she really wants to get a team together that can carry on the efforts, which can take anywhere from one to three years, depending on the size of the group and how active it is.

A number of cities surrounding Redmond have active teams already, BeCraft says, including Sammamish and Bellevue, and there are about 30 communities in Washington state that either have the certification or are in the process of obtaining it.

BeCraft says she’s already had good support from groups such as Sustainable Redmond, and that she’s pleased with other environmental efforts in Redmond, such as efforts to make parks urban forests.

Cindy Jayne, of Sustainable Redmond, says many of the techniques involved in creating community wildlife habitats, such as reducing pesticide use, planting native plants and reducing invasives, fit in well with the mission of Sustainable Redmond as well as Green Redmond.

"I think this ties in very well in many ways," she says.

She’s planning to invite students to participate as well. There already are some schools, such as and , which have worked together to create a certified wildlife habitat on property they share through the Eco-Schools program.

"Rianne brings a great background to it. She's done a wonderful job talking to the junior high schools," Jayne says. "It's a nice goal to rally around."

“Hopefully, we’ll have fun with it,” BeCraft said.