Not all capes have heroes

(but Perpetua does)

The Cape Perpetua Collaborative is a community organization that focuses on conservation and collaboration in one of the most visited natural areas in Oregon. To adapt to travel limitations due to COVID-19 this summer, the group launched a set of online educational presentations on subjects that ran the gamut from tiny sea creatures to the largest mammals on Earth.

For the new year, the collaborative has launched a new free online series, beginning Saturday, Jan. 9, and running at 10 am most Saturdays through March 20, featuring topics including pinnipeds, beavers, climate change, old growth forest, humpback whales, juvenile fish and more.

The series is starting at a good pace with a talk by avid hiker and author Bonnie Henderson, who will describe her favorite hikes north and south of Yachats, and answer questions about day hiking and backpacking on the Central Oregon Coast.

She’ll discuss why the roughly 30 miles of Oregon Coast between Waldport and Florence is a hiker’s dream, with long, wide beaches, trails through old growth forest and spectacular viewpoints.

Henderson is a journalist and the author of two guidebooks from Mountaineers Books, “Day Hiking: Oregon Coast” and “Best Hikes with Kids in Oregon.” Her third guidebook, “Hiking the Oregon Coast Trail,” is due to be published this fall.

She is also the author of two critically acclaimed nonfiction books, “The Next Tsunami: Living on a Restless Coast,” and “Strand: An Odyssey of Pacific Ocean Debris.” She currently serves as communications coordinator for the North Coast Lake Conservancy in Seaside.

The next scheduled presentation, on Saturday, Jan. 16, is “The View from Cascade Head: Lessons for the Biosphere from the Oregon Coast,” with ecologist, writer and consultant Bruce Byers.

Cascade Head, Cape Perpetua’s neighbor to the north, is Oregon’s only biosphere reserve, part of an international network organized by UNESCO. In this presentation, Byers will discuss how the rich history of ecological research and the stories of the people who have worked to protect it have made Cascade Head a laboratory for understanding human impacts on ecosystems and a model for healing the human-nature relationship. Lessons learned there apply everywhere and can help us envision a more resilient relationship with our home planet. Increased collaboration between Cape Perpetua and Cascade Head could reinforce and extend some of these lessons.

Byers’ recently released book of essays about the Cascade Head Biosphere Reserve, “The View from Cascade Head: Lessons for the Biosphere from the Oregon Coast,” was published by the Oregon State University Press. He has advised government agencies and NGOs around the world on biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management, and has worked in 34 biosphere reserves in 17 countries. He was the resident ecologist at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in 2018, and a visiting scholar at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in the Oregon Cascades in 2019.

All events are held via Zoom and require registration to attend. For more information and registration links, go to capeperpetuacollaborative.org.