Karen Hall is the director of the Ecological Education Program at the Institute for Applied Ecology, a nonprofit that works across Oregon and New Mexico conserving native species and habitats. Hall also runs the organization’s Sagebrush in Prisons Project, which works with incarcerated crew members to seed, grow, and outplant sagebrush on the landscape.

The sagebrush steppe, an ecosystem found in the Intermountain West from California to Colorado, is threatened by fire, invasive species, highway development, and livestock overgrazing. The native plants that keep the sagebrush habitat healthy are in decline, and the Sagebrush in Prisons project works to heal some of the devastation the land is facing. 

Trained as an ethnobotanist, Hall grew up in southern Appalachia, where communities are poor and disinvested. Her upbringing influenced her life’s trajectory. 

“I’ve really tried to serve any kind of underserved and under-resourced audience for most of my career,” Hall said. 

Previously, Hall worked as the adult outreach education coordinator for South Carolina’s Clemson University and later worked with the Eastern Band of Cherokee, cataloging the knowledge of elders and healers of the tribe and leading the creation of the Cherokee Worldview Garden at the South Carolina Botanical Garden.

In her third year on the job, Hall said she’s focused on finding ways that the Sagebrush in Prisons project can benefit people post-incarceration. She’s currently searching for funding to make that goal a reality.

In late June, Prism’s climate justice reporter Ray Levy Uyeda spoke to Hall by phone about what it means to help an ecosystem survive through the labor of incarcerated people, among other difficult topics. 

This Q&A is part of a series, The Prison in 12 Landscapes, featuring companion pieces from Ray Levy Uyeda and Tamar Sarai, running through September and is organized to introduce readers to subjects beginning with the most—and easing into the least–proximate to prisons’ material form. You can read through the full series here. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Ray Levy Uyeda: What does sagebrush planting look like? Talk me through the nuts and bolts of the program.

Karen Hall: We’re funded primarily by the Bureau of Land Management. We are currently in 11 prisons in five states. We do more than just grow sagebrush, but most of our effort is oriented around that. We grow about half a million plants a year. Crews do the work, and every prison works differently. Generally speaking, at the start of the year—if it’s allowed—we interview potential crew members to come on to the crew. We look at resumes and interview applicants. Where it’s allowed, we pay them. It is not always allowed based on the state and the prison. We have absolutely no control over the amount of pay. If they are allowed to be paid, we can argue for more, but we seldom get a purchase on it. Crew members come to the program sometime in late January or early February, and we come together to talk about what the program does and how it works.

Levy Uyeda: What’s happening with sagebrush? Why is it important to intervene and help the ecosystem survive?

Hall: Sagebrush is about 50% of what its historic spread was, which is detrimental to both people and the more-than-human organisms that live on that land. From a sagebrush perspective, there are about 350 animals that depend on sagebrush to live their lives. As that resource is declining, you’re also losing the ability to support those animals—and as you lose the ability to support those animals, you disrupt natural systems, too. So that’s the whole problem. We’re focused on restoring areas where sagebrush has been burned because of a fire. Those fires are primarily driven by the introduction of a non-native grass called cheatgrass. Cheatgrass spreads prolifically in sagebrush ecosystems and, unfortunately, makes the land extremely fire-prone. Because cheatgrass is very difficult to get rid of, there are more fires in sagebrush systems than there historically have been. The need for restoration is very great right now. 

Levy Uyeda: Is it only about planting? What happens next?

Hall: We educate crews about the sagebrush steppe habitat and why it’s an important one to conserve because it really isn’t just about animal livelihoods. It’s also about human livelihoods because we are inextricably linked. Most humans think that we’re sort of outside the boundaries of being an animal, but we are deeply linked, and those are the things that we try to teach throughout the year. So it’s not that they come to the start of the program, and that’s the only teaching they receive. They typically receive lessons at least weekly from my staff members that are in each of these places. Those lessons discuss the biology of the sagebrush steppe and contain details like pollinators of sagebrush habitats, and other animals, reptiles, and birds. 

Crew members learn about sagebrush horticulture. We teach them about the soil matrix that we use, germination, how to properly sow a seed, and how to water properly. We talk about integrated pest management. We talk about troubleshooting sagebrush. We talk about the growth and development of plants. During the peak of COVID-19, we shipped the plants to the Bureau of Land Management offices so they could be planted out. Only recently have we reinstituted the planting by incarcerated crew members. Going forward I’d love to see crews involved in all aspects, from collecting seeds to growing to planting, because then you can see the full cycle from a bigger picture perspective.

Levy Uyeda: The devastation of our climate system and the rapid warming of the earth’s temperature is rooted in settler colonialism, neo-colonialism, and capitalism. These are the same roots that bore the prison system. How do you grapple with this, especially since sagebrush planting attempts to address fires or the aftershock of western settlement, development, and drought—and doing so through underpaying and exploiting the labor of incarcerated peoples?

Hall: I confess that I don’t feel great about it, but I also don’t feel horrid about it because I believe the value of what we’re doing exceeds the hard conditions that brought us here—and I don’t think it perpetuates it because of how we conduct the program. Now, some might disagree with that. My staff is really sensitive to this question.

My whole career has been about helping people understand nature and really wanting to improve the number of people who actually have a relationship with nature. It’s not enough to know a few things about nature, but let’s make it something you recognize that you are so intertwined with—there’s no separation. That’s my big hope. Being able to be out in nature is the place where I go to solve my problems. I need it for my emotional health. I need it for relationships. And I’m not talking about the relationships with my husband, with friends, or people. I’m really talking about relationships with the plant and animal communities that I live with. Even the ones in my backyard. I raise food, but even if I didn’t raise food, I’m dependent on those communities in my backyard to provide me with some of the food that I eat and allows me to live life. And some of those animals die in the process. It’s life and death. Everyone deserves that relationship.

Levy Uyeda: Can you talk a bit about what crew members have been able to do with their knowledge and experience post-incarceration?

Hall: We aren’t always allowed to contact people after they exit. We’re starting to do it anyway with a permission form, which we wrote and gives us the opportunity to communicate with people post-incarceration. One of the people who’s on the crew at Warner Creek Correctional Facility in Lakeview, Oregon, has gone on to form a sagebrush nursery. I’ve also just been contacted by someone who served in two prisons that we work in currently and was aware of the program. He was, I think, in a garden program that was adjacent to the sagebrush program. He was aware of it and really wants to do it, and has property to do it in Prineville, Oregon. I just had a conversation with him on the phone the other day. We’re working toward being able to help him. 

One of the things we would like to do is get to a point where we can hold training sessions for people who are really interested in growing native plants. According to a recent report on the state of native seeds, we need billions of more pounds of seed to be planted to address ecosystem challenges. I think there is a burgeoning opportunity for people who are exiting prison. I want to try to position us to take advantage of that. I want to bring in other people who can talk about how to start a business, financing and all those things. I want to bring in staff from the U.S. Department of Agriculture because that agency has funds to help farmers.