For a generation whose lives have been shaped by the ever-developing climate crisis, having hope and feeling connected to nature can often feel impossible.

But UC Santa Barbara anthropology professor Jeffrey Hoelle works to combat this with the Isla Vista (IV) Ethnobotany Project, a way for local residents to reintroduce themselves to the earth through the practice of foraging. Ethnobotany is the study of traditional uses of plants in a region.

The project’s website is filled with interactive maps guiding viewers to plants throughout Isla Vista and highlighting their many potential uses. Explanatory videos, informational articles, and student projects, from curriculum to zines, are featured in this archive. The project also places a special emphasis on Chumash ethnobotany. The Chumash are Indigenous to the coast of California, stretching from Malibu to Paso Robles and including the northern Channel Islands.

In a recent interview, Hoelle delved into the intentions behind the initiative.

Q: What was the inspiration behind starting the IV Ethnobotany Project?

A: I teach environmental anthropology and I often draw on my own research in the Amazon, but my research doesn't lend itself very well to inspiring students. After telling you about it, you’re interested, but it was creating this sense of hopelessness. The project is meant to safely help introduce people to the world that surrounds them because nature is everywhere. We often think we need to leave to get to nature, and it’s the same with food; we think food has to come in a package or with a bunch of labels. The project has a double intention of getting people to break this barrier, and also to gain something beneficial; they can eat new things. Once they do it here, they can go other places, and they'll have that comfort to do it again. It produces a relationship with the land that I think contributes to environmental goals. What can we do in our own lives to live more in tune with nature and contribute to sustainability?

Q: What is the rold of the IV Ethnobotany Project in fighting the climate crisis?

A: There's a danger with [thinking] “I'm going to save the world.” We have to have that urgency now, but it has to come from a place of engagement and love to be real and be sustainable. I want students to get there, but I want them to first realize, “Wow, this is a wonderful, beautiful world worth protecting, because I actually know what's around here.”

We can contribute to climate indirectly. If you begin to eat more [local food], or even to produce your own, then that has a huge impact in terms of consumption because there are lot of things you can buy that can be foraged. If we can find what we eat, that means we're not getting something shipped from [across the country or globe].

Q: How might projects like the IV Ethnobotany Project support more sustainable food systems?

A: Foraging is the most sustainable, but it doesn't lend itself to that stability we desire. Instead, it can be a complement to our food systems. Right now there's mustard, there's dark leafy plants, in the summer, blackberries will come. A complement of farming and foraging can be really useful for creating a sense of sovereignty, and here we have these wild, unused spaces where you can forage on campus and in Isla Vista.

The IV Ethnobotany Project is centered around students. Hoelle invites those with research ideas to contact him and they can work together, or they can become a member of The Hoelle Culture and Environment Lab. For those interested in learning more about foraging, Hoelle encourages visiting the IV Ethnobotany Instagram [@ivethnobotany] to stay up to date with the project and community events they host like “Edible Plant Walks” where one can learn about foraging in IV from an expert.

For more information on the project, visit their website.

Maya Rink is a third-year environmental studies major (B.A.) and Grace Liu is a third-year psychological & brain sciences major with a statistical science minor at UC Santa Barbara. They wrote this for their Writing Program course, Digital Journalism.