Growing Sagebrush in Prison
Meet Stacy Moore, wildlife biologist and educator
On the fourth Saturday, I like to make introductions here. Today, I bring you Sagebrush in Prisons Project and Stacy Moore, the woman behind the unlikely pairing. Quadrupling would be more accurate.
Through SPP, people in prison meet and work to save a threatened bird, the greater sage-grouse, and its declining ecosystem. The project is an environmental partnership between the Institute for Applied Ecology, Department of Corrections, and the Bureau of Land Management. A wildlife biologist and educator and my new neighbor here at my winter cabin, Stacy brought the project to life. Since its fall 2014 beginnings at Snake River Correctional Institution, SPP has grown and is now in twelve facilities, both state and federal, across six states.
Meeting people is one of my favorite parts of my slowmadic life (thanks for the term,
). On a hike, Stacy shared SPP with me; I knew I wanted to share it with you. So, I asked her over for chicken soup and a taped conversation. Today, a distilled version of that convo.
HS. Sagebrush in Prisons combines ecological restoration with vocational training for men and women in custody. So, that’s a lot of lives impacted—human, animal, plant. It feels full spectrum. I’d love if you’d share what inspired you to fill this particular need in this particular way.
SM. In 2012, my boss, Tom Kaye, at the Institute for Applied Ecology and I went to a conference at Evergreen College, home of the Sustainability in Prisons Project [SPP]. We discovered there’s a real need for quality programs for adults in custody. Later, in conversation with one of the heads of the BLM [Bureau of Land Management] plant program, Peggy Olwell, Tom learned the increasing number of wildfires was leading to a need to get native plants out on the landscape. So, Tom and Peggy talked, and they thought, Let’s, you know, marry the two.
Tom approached me. I was like, “I haven’t grown sagebrush. And I haven’t worked with adults in custody.” And he was like, “You’ll figure it out.”
HS. Seems that proved true? Was it a high learning curve?
SM. Extremely high. My background’s in wildlife biology, not botany. I originally went to Lucky Peak Nursery in Boise, Idaho. They grow thousands and thousands of native plants, including sagebrush. They taught me some basics—the types of soil and what kind of containers to use.
And then there was my first time going to a prison. It was Coffee Creek Correctional Facility. You drive up, and you see razor wire everywhere and block buildings, and I was like, “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” A guy comes out to greet you and checks your ID. And then he has this piece of paper, and he goes, “You realize and agree you are entering a secure facility, and you know something bad could happen, and we’re not obligated to save you. Do you agree to these terms?” And you’re like, “I guess.” It’s kind of scary.
HS. I want to get into what you discovered inside the prisons. First, quickly, let’s talk about the environmental aspect of the project. You’re a wildlife biologist and environmental educator. Your husband, Peter Moore, is currently on Campbell Island [Motu Ihupuku] in New Zealand working with the albatross species there. What I’m getting at is that the planet and its ecosystems are big in your life and in your relationships.
SM. That’s so true. Pete’s been an ornithologist basically his whole working life. I was doing a volunteer stint in New Zealand for six months at Nelson Lakes National Park. And Pete is a wicked Latin dancer. There was a dance workshop. I came over from Nelson, and he came over from Wellington. And we met on the dance floor. We kept in touch when I went back to the States. The next year, he went to the subantarctic Campbell Island to work with the albatross, and I went down as his volunteer. We fell in love on this isolated 11,000-hectare island.
HS. Wow, that’s a pretty cool place to fall in love.
SM. It was funny because we were there for two months. We knew we could get along in the outdoors and isolated areas. But we both asked ourselves, We do nature really well, but can we do cities together?
“The people in custody always thanked me and appreciated me and our staff. But I feel I was given ten times what I gave. I just felt honored working with them. They were always very appreciative. They are making a positive difference in our society. It fed my soul to work with these wonderful individuals. And they need to be given a chance just like everybody else.” —Stacy Moore
HS. How wonderful you’ve been able to make a life that combines both. That brings me to the sagebrush steppe ecosystem, half of the heart of Sagebrush in Prisons. Like the grouse that bears its name, which has gone from numbering 16 million 100 years ago to between 200,000 and 500,000 today, the steppe is imperiled. I read there were once 240,000 square miles across thirteen western US states, and it’s down to 134,000 square miles.1 It’s also home to mule deer and elk and songbirds and reptiles and so many other species. Could you, as someone deeply connected with the planet and its ecosystems, speak to what kind of an impact the loss and then the sage grown in the correctional facilities is having and what that means to you and maybe even to all of us?
SM. You’ve done your homework. The loss of those birds is huge. When you talk to people about the sagebrush steppe, they look around and go, “Well, you know sagebrush is everywhere.” But we’ve lost about half, and we’re continuing to lose that habitat due to mining and mineral exploration and extraction. Wildfires are bigger and bigger, and it turns those ecosystems into a moonscape. Human population growth and expansion of our cities and suburbs contributes. And cattle grazing—and I want to emphasize I mean overgrazing—can harm the land. People go hunting in these landscapes. So, there are a lot of reasons to care about the well-being of these lands and the wildlife they support.
Because of how wildfire denudes the landscape, it’s really difficult to start native plants growing back by just scattering seeds. When you can grow a plug with an eight-inch taproot and put that in, you get much better survival rates and a far quicker recovery of your ecosystem.
HS. Switching gears to the prison side of the program, we have more staggering numbers. More than two million men and women in the United States are in custody. It’s hard to wrap your brain around two million, but that’s the population of Houston, Texas, and more than the entire population of fourteen separate US states. We have one of the highest incarceration rates of developed nations.2 When you and I were hiking the other day, you mentioned the discrepancies between a nation’s incarceration rates and its spending on social programs. Are programs like Sagebrush in Prisons filling that gap?
SM. Yes. And I want to add here that it is that. (At another Evergreen conference, Stacy was met with protesters objecting to “forced labor” in prisons. The program is volunteer and often comes with the minimal compensation allowed by facilities.)3
In most cases, there are more people wanting to do these types of programs than there are openings. Often, getting in requires that participants fill out a résumé and an application just like they would for a job, so they can practice doing that. And most love it. They’re outside. They’re growing things. They get education opportunities and certificates at the end of the program.
HS. Yes, you bring in guest lecturers on land management and conservation, right?
SM. We have herpetologists who talk about reptiles and amphibians and paleontologists and beekeepers and all sorts of speakers. In Idaho, a bird rescue place came and brought eagles. The guys loved it! They’re always an extremely engaged, attentive audience. The education component is important. Participants get a certificate at the end explaining the skills they’ve learned. Plus, the staff and I wrote letters of recommendation, the staff still does (Stacy’s retired) because they’re going to be applying for jobs. I usually wrote two types of letters—one that mentions prison and one that doesn’t.
HS. I’ve been reading issues of Boundless Sky, Sagebrush in Prisons’ newsletter. My favorite part is accounts in the words of people in custody—quotes about what the program has meant for them and the creative work it’s inspired, like poetry.
SM. It’s really phenomenal to see the commitment to the plants and to caring for them that develops. And to being part of something greater than themselves. It’s a win-win-win. It’s a win for the people in custody. It’s a win for the local community. And it’s a win for nature.
HS. When I was in my early twenties, my then husband’s dad took us to tour the defunct prison where he “grew up.” His father was warden, and the men in custody were part of his daily life. One, for example, who was a “lifer,” was his babysitter. Many people are living in custody, as we’ve discussed. So necessarily, it follows that many of us know or know of someone who is living out a life in prison. On the other hand, there are those of us who have no such connection. I suspect that disconnect and the misunderstandings it engenders is devastatingly detrimental to us all, particularly those in custody and their loved ones. Can you talk about what it was like getting to know some of the people in custody, who living out their lives behind bars?
SM. Because the Sagebrush in Prisons program is highly sought out, I worked mainly with the “lower-risk” individuals and some who were classified as medium risk. Many, not all, were getting close to getting out. Some were lifers. And these people are just like you and me. They’ve made a mistake, and many will be released back into society. We need to give them opportunities to better themselves. They’re gonna be our neighbors before too long.
The participants always enjoyed working with me and the contractors or staff because we looked at them as whole, complete individuals. How we hold people is how they will present themselves. If I look at you as a whole individual, you will show up to me that way.
HS. Truth! I remember from the tour through that prison thinking just how invaluable it is to me, to my mental health, to be able to experience nature—to take a walk, to take in the smells and rhythms of life blooming. I can’t imagine the loss of that. I’m thinking of that ability to grow something as huge.
SM. Yeah. Let me give you an example. One of the early prisons we started in was Idaho State Correctional Center. When I first approached that prison, I was shown a courtyard surrounded by razor wire that was basically just dirt. Soon, we were growing 60,000 sagebrush plants. The program was so successful the facility later added grass and a greenhouse so other inmates could have access to nature. Because these plants are grown in the desert but being watered every day, suddenly you see frogs. You see birds. It was so cute. The inmates would say, “Stace, come over here! I want to show you Walter.” And there’d be a big praying mantis. “And over here is Frank.” Well, there was another one.
HS. I think here of Jaxon the paper wasp and Bart the horny toad and other friends I chilled with while isolated in the desert during early days of the pandemic.
SM. One of the prisons had a hose bib. Lift up the lid, and there were a whole bunch of frogs. It was so cool. So, the program really does create a natural oasis for these people who are living in concrete buildings behind bars with doors clanking shut. One of the things I heard from participants time and time again was that being out with the plants gave them the opportunity for something very rare in their lives—quiet. Inside prisons, it’s always noisy. It’s chaotic. There are checks all the time. There are lots of people. Out there, they can hear birds. Oh, there’s a meadowlark. There’s a flycatcher. And they just kept saying, “I can be alone with my thoughts out here.”
How we hold people is how they will present themselves. If I look at you as a whole individual, you will show up to me that way. —Stacy Moore
HS. As I said the other day, I’m keenly aware that, but for the grace of circumstance, I’ve never experienced that kind of lockup. I can hardly grasp how dearly my mental health would suffer in the chaos.
SM. Right. And another thing I heard all the time—probably these two more than anything—was, “This is the first time I’ve ever been able to give back.”
I’ll tell you a story from ISCC. One of the inmates was a wildlife biologist. Before being incarcerated, he was outside all the time. Now suddenly he’s in prison. The officers I worked with said he was so severely depressed he refused to even go outside during yard time. “We know who you need,” they told me as soon as they learned about the program. This guy became the lead for that program. He took it seriously. He worried about the plants, sometimes losing sleep over them, and took meticulous data. Some of the best plants I had came out of ISCC because this biologist took it on as a job. And the officers said it saved his life. So that’s how impactful this program can be.
HS. Wow. I’m really glad it’s happening. Anything else you wish I would have asked about?
SM. I just want to point to the impact the program’s had on me. The people in custody always thanked me and appreciated me and our staff. But I feel I was given ten times what I gave. I just felt honored working with them. They were always very appreciative. They are making a positive difference in our society. It fed my soul to work with these wonderful individuals. And they need to be given a chance just like everybody else.
HS. Thank you, Stacy. I’m grateful to you for sharing this program.
Look at that gorgoeus bird!
🦅 Want more like this? Every fourth Saturday I bring you someone awesome I’ve met on the road, through my writing life, or somewhere in between. Support this work by subscribing or upgrading to a paid subscription. A financial contribution, if you can afford it, helps cover the time it takes to conduct research and interviews, make transcripts, and distill them. Having you read and like and share and restack helps this work grow. Thank you!
A 2021 US Geological Survey reports 80 percent range-wide declines in the greater sage-grouse populations since 1965 and a nearly 40 percent decline since 2002. In “No Endangered Status for Plains Bird,” the New York Times reported on a 2010 decision not to put the grouse on an endangered species list, though the bird was clearly going extinct. Bella Norton reported on the loss of these once fertile grounds in “The Sagebrush Steppe Ecosystem,” Boundless Sky, fall 2023. Boundless Sky is SPP’s newsletter.
“Countries with the largest number of prisoners per 100,000 of the national population, as of January 2024,” Statista. Only El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda, Turkmenistan, and American Somoa have a higher portion of their populations incarcerated, according to this report. https://www.statista.com/statistics/262962/countries-with-the-most-prisoners-per-100-000-inhabitants/#:~:text=Prisoners%20in%20the%20United%20States,nations%20had%20far%20fewer%20prisoners.
In, “A glimpse of prison slave labor,” published Feb 15, 2024,
(Moth to flame) describes the experiences of being forced to work on a chain gang, as described to her by a person in custody, a brutality many of us no doubt like to think of as in the past. Included in the post is a recording of her conversation with the man. On the same day NPR’s Ryan Lucas covered a DOJ report on deaths in prison, particularly high rates of suicide and homicide. “DOJ watchdog finds 187 inmate suicides in federal prisons over 8-year period, Morning Edition, https://www.npr.org/2024/02/15/1231745029/doj-watchdog-inmate-suicides-federal-prisons-report.
This was a true inspiration. Thank you. I learned so much about prairie ecosystems, and how everyone benefits from bringing incarcerated people into this kind of program.
This is just soul nourishing to read about, I'm so grateful you shared it and for all the work that the Institute for Applied Ecology is doing (side note: I know Stacy's boss and my partner worked with him early on in his career--love their work). Prison abolition is something that needs to be talked about more, and hearing the work Stacy and others has done to improve inmates lives while doing something to restore the land...it's just beautiful. Thanks so much for sharing. 💜