 So yeah, some context of the birdhouse. Since 2016, this has drawn from a mission statement acting as a hub of exchange for those attracted to caring for the land and people through arts and ecology. That intersection of arts and ecology is really central to what we do. And now as of 2020, we are the first urban ecosystem restoration camp in the world. And we really don't take that opportunity lightly. It's a great responsibility and a great privilege. And that's what this project speaks to. So yeah, arts and ecology are very complementary. And so we have music through the band of singers, skill shares and crafts, salon conversations, and our wisdom series. So all of those things are kind of cultural pieces and ways to reinforce this kind of spirit of biofilia, the spirit of community building. This is not in the Bueri per se, but this is just the overall picture of the birdhouse. On the ecology side, yeah, we've been developing the garden here for the last few years. We have an herbal medicine collective called the community apothecary that draws from the plants that we grow here to make products and distribute them amongst the community. Our arts and ecology volunteer days where we bring people to the garden to work and to make crafts as well, signage for the plants, using natural materials. Big emphasis on natural, locally grown materials for those things. We're also super excited. Just at the tail end of last year, we signed an MOU with a cultural advisor of the Tongva people who are the first nation's people of Los Angeles, a really fascinating guy, a great educator. And we're gonna be offering a lot of programming with him this year. So that's the rest of the birdhouse, right? And what we're gonna get into the Bueri project now, which is the new part that we're kind of expanding into. So that stands for Birdhouse Urban Ecosystem Restoration Initiative, Bueri or Bueri, you can say it with an Italian accent, makes it a little, it comes off the tongue a little different. And so our big goal for that, Bueri, yeah. And you can throw your hands into it if you really wanna, that's the other part of the Italian accent. You should, you should, yeah. Yeah. So that big goal, which is regenerating land under the Hollywood sign by growing gardens on neighbor's lots, sharing the bounty and creating a culture of care. We aspire to create one of the world's most visible and iconic restoration projects, one that will inspire restoration efforts around the globe. We think that's a huge potential of this project to inspire others. So why does it matter that we're doing it here in Los Angeles, Urban Ecosystem Restoration? Well, we see that Hollywood, it broadcasts the messages which reflect and shape our culture. And there's no higher place in the watershed of world-changing ideas. So if we're doing this work here, we're asking ourselves the question, oh, how do we make sure that this isn't just a flash in the pan, that this isn't something that, some work that gets done that gets abandoned later. And we think it comes down to building a culture of care. We think that that's really essential, that this cultural piece enforces the work that's done on the land. And I said that we need to build this culture of care. And so we're kind of interested as well in like, well, what are the boundaries of this we that we speak of? How can this be more inclusive? How can we draw more beings into this realm of we? And I'm reminded of this quote by one of my favorite speakers and writer is a Nigerian psychologist named Bayo Okomalafi. He says, we need a thicker, we comprised of entangled agencies of lichen and leaches, mycelia and mountain, barnacles and howling beasts, not just humans, because we are a conspiracy, a commonwealth of breath. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Because let's remember that to conspire has nothing to do with QAnon. In fact, to conspire is to breathe together, right? So just as we breathe in the exhalation of the trees, they breathe in our exhalation. So that's a bit of context for the Bury Project. And I'm gonna turn it over to Jessica now. Yes. Thank you, thank you, Cameron, for that introduction. And yes, so you can imagine that when this opportunity came to partner with ERC and to become the first urban ecosystem camp, we thought, okay, how do we do this together? How do we do it with care? And how do we do it in a holistic manner? So the first thing that we wanted to do was really research if there was a framework that we can adapt and use to this WETI project that we were thinking of developing. And what we found was a partner of the ERC called Commonland, who have a successfully proven model and business plan for the restoration of degraded land, and they call it the four returns model. Now, this model was developed in close collaboration with leading scientific institutes, business schools, farmers and experts, and they did so by focusing on four key returns over the course of a single generation or 20 years. Now, this diagram offers a snapshot of Commonland's four return model, parts of which we will be adapting to our proposed WETI budget, and we will address how we will do so through the course of our presentation. So what we really want to draw your attention to at this point in the diagram is what Commonland identifies as the four returns. And we feel that these four returns really provide a holistic and innovative way of looking at what our investment really can produce, what are the returns that they could really produce? And they have four categories. The first is the return of inspiration, and they define that as giving people hope and a sense of purpose and being that we are in Hollywood and that we have access to advisors who are filmmakers, music producers and so forth, we feel that we have a really good standing to be able to receive this type of return within the next two years of our project. The second return is the return of social capital and that is bringing back jobs, business activity, education and security. And we at the Birdhouse are in fact an educational nonprofit. And of course as the first ERC camp, we feel that we will need to share what we learn as we go, because we want to make sure that we're paving at least parts of the ways, parts of the way for those who are interested in creating something similar in their own neighborhoods and communities. So we want to create this social capital, this community and culture of care that we were talking about. The third return is the return of natural capital and that is restoring biodiversity, soil and water quality. This again is an expected return by virtue of the nature of restoring degraded land, but it is our intention to actively monitor and evaluate the progress of our restoration work in Hollywood. The last and final return is return of economic capital. And this is defined as realizing long-term sustainable profit and really speaks to the idea of facilitating community-driven business activities that would produce financial benefits to all stakeholders. For example, sustainable agriculture, forestry, real estate, tourism, sustainable industrial development and so forth. Now, while we love common lands for return model, it has yet to be tested in a large city urban context like Los Angeles. So we feel that what we will be doing is adapting certain concepts and elements of the model to strategically inform our approach in restoring land here in Hollywood. And the main concept that we are really drawing from is what common land considers a mosaic landscape. And they say that the mosaic landscape is or are multifunctional landscapes consisting of different components which together form a patchwork. This concept reflects the complexity and dynamics as well as the uniqueness of each landscape. And we find that to be especially true in an urban setting like we find ourselves in Hollywood. The other concepts that we will be drawing from and that John will be speaking on shortly are the three zone types that produce these returns on investment. And they are natural zones, combined zones and economic zones. And what these do is basically define the ecological function of each piece of land and what are the possible activities that could be hosted on them. So now I will pass it over to John who will talk about those zones. You're muted. You're muted. There you go. Thank you, Jessica. I'll do that. So we're talking about really the mosaic pattern that we started and these will be the six new properties that we can look at through the lens of the four returns and see how this investment into natural zones, common zones and economic zones has these returns of natural capital. So for example, the natural zones are really focused on ecosystem function and restoring the vegetation. And as we see most of the time it's funded by grants and or government agencies. The Holly Ridge property is in the shadow of the Hollywood sign. I say that it's close by and in view of and provides a photo op if you will. And it is a disturbed piece of land that we're in negotiation with the council district for for a license agreement. And it'll provide an opportunity for engagement with the Tongva for our developing traditional ecological knowledge and of course a cascade of benefits from that, including education and participation. And that'll produce a wildlife corridor. The other, which is strangely the most visible as what we call the triangle here. And it was another just a disturbed forgotten piece of land that the city owns. And we started restoring the soil there and the production of flowers, sunflowers and greenery and wildlife and rabbits there was just a real inspiration. I'd say the greatest harvest in this is the inspiration of the people who walk by every morning with their dogs. And these are people who are writing the TV shows and they're full of questions and just really enthusiastic. It's a great thing to see. And we need signage for that for the coming. So there's this combined zone, which is part of the urban wildlife interface here that's a big part of where we are in the canyon. So yeah, restoring vegetation, planting usable low maintenance trees, primarily fruit and nut. And I'll show you how, you know, you get returns in all carry of this lens that we're looking at it through for the natural inspirational and social capital. The birdhouse is really the, what we're looking at here is from the rooftop down on the birdhouse. It started in 2016 or maybe 15 is that first one with the cement and the progression toward this canopy, this edible oasis. We call it the oasis of connection because that's what's going on there really is connection on so many levels with our programming and with just nature itself. And it was, it's important to know that this was really built from the waste streams of gardeners and horses in the community. There's stables nearby and Halloween, horses and Halloween built this. And I was really tempted to include a photo here that showed when we started, the soil could not be penetrated with a pen knife. And recently we took a picture of my hand squabbling in to middle of the wrist without any effort. So the soil biomass and biodiversity has increased here in a model kind of way. Then there's the, what we call the willing neighbor. This is Mary Lou. She's the first to participate in this way with a memorandum of understanding that we use their property to restore the soil and produce food, produce fruits, vegetables and a learning center. It turned out beautifully that her husband is a lawyer and provided the services to refine our memorandum of understanding that would be a boilerplate for others in the neighborhood. This is a property, a piece of that property, also part of the combined zone that where we're building beds of herb, mostly herbs for kind of way of being responsible to what it means to wild forage and people irresponsibly forage and produce their own herbal medicines. In this way, we're giving forward planting wherever we can herb gardens that will provide a possible economic return with the remedies we're making. And this property also has all kinds of social returns because of the people who own it are influential and engaged, they're participating in a big way. So the economic zone is the sort of third part of this zones and this is where we're more in the city and we're restoring what vegetation we can for food, sustainable agriculture. And it's frankly in a beautiful model in that these are some of the most expensive pieces of land, in America, I guess you could say, it's just seeing it through the lens of having access and participation by the landowners without having to buy it is a beautiful model. And that's at the core of what we're up to is engaging people and the social capital, the return of, in that way is clear. This is a new neighbor, an old neighbor that's a new participant. And that as you can see has a great deal of opportunity for farming, for producing food. And that's where she's really interested in, she was excited to have found us by word of mouth and there's a great potential for the ERC participants to work on this land because of the scale of it and a great deal of potential for the food that could be produced there. And the last one here is Vasanta Way, a Shiraz property that is, as you see, a disturbed piece of soil. It is the, if you look close way up at the top, you can see beehives, it's the apiary annex of the birdhouse. So he's been participating with us to house our hives, where they're a little more out in the distance. And so this land here is the orchard that we talk of, the orchid to be. And so you can see that there's quite a bit of restoration to do on the soil and it's a proven model. It's something that we now have confidence in doing to take a piece of land like this and restore the soil, which brings back the biomass, the biodiversity, accumulated organic matter that makes for a great orchard that of course, not in its first year, but maybe in its second or third year will be producing food to feed those who need it most. And the bounty of our vegetation, vegetables and fruits go to the community at large, which includes those who need it most that we work with through participating non-profits who are that interface. So there you have it. Thank you, thank you, John, for that breakdown and for describing the zones. But now that you've outlined the Bwedi project sites and their respective ecological function and the returns that they provide, what are we proposing to achieve when we do this? So what we are proposing or the restoration goals that we have outlined for ourselves is that after the two-year mark, we would have generated approximately 43,350 square feet in Hollywood. We would have planted 300 trees who are cared for, 300 trees not just planted, but cared for by the community. We would have produced or generated 11,200 pounds of food that we will distribute to the community and to as John mentioned, to communities of need. And we hope that we will be partnering with a sister organization called the Hollywood Orchard to be able to do that within these two years while the six project sites are being prepped and established and we can start kind of sharing the bounty when we see that coming in. We will have planted 12 million seeds, especially because we do a lot of cover cropping as part of our way of restoring or building up the top soil. So we are very confident that we will probably exceed that number. We will have propagated approximately 1,000 trees in low maintenance, high efficiency nursery. And that is possibly going to happen with a partnership that we have with the urban ecologists here in LA, but I'll talk about her a little bit more later. We will increase the soil organic matter by 400% and increase the water infiltration and percolation speeds by 100%. And as John mentioned, we have demonstrated those successes at the Birdhouse Community Garden and the other parcels that we've been working on. So we're very confident that we will be doing this, especially because I know Cameron's been testing this out in the garden, how fast the water goes. So if you want to check that out, talk to Cameron. Now, to ensure that we are fulfilling on the restoration goals that we've just outlined, we will have to monitor and evaluate our work. And we will be doing so by using what ERCs, honestly, they've been a blessing. They've already created a monitoring and evaluation framework how-to guide that we will be adapting to include indicators of success that are more consistent with the LA region. And we will be doing that with support from Cat Superfiske, who is the only urban ecologist on staff in LA. And she's really excited to walk us through, help us figure out what's the best way to produce the results that reflect this region. So we're excited for that partnership. She also is the founder of a nursery that is based out of Griffith Park. And we're hoping that instead of acquiring another parcel, maybe partnering with her and that nursery to propagate more trees that are appropriate or to plant in this area, but doing so in partnership instead of having to look, as John said, to purchase another property to do this. Okay. So in order for us to be able to sustain the current programs of the birdhouse, which Cameron talked about at the beginning of our presentation, and to do the proposed work of the project, of the WETI project, we will need support. To date, it's only been four of us doing all of the programs of the birdhouse. And Cameron and John has been doing a lot of the restoration work of the land, of course, with some supportive volunteers, but it's going to require some real personnel to help move this project along, especially with six new sites. So what we will, the needs that we anticipate having is a part-time position that is focused on, that is a media specialist and who will be focused on really capturing the story of the birdhouse as we restore these parcels and actively engaging the community in a more consistent basis. Right now we've been doing it periodically, but because we have so much work, we need somebody that's really dedicated to doing this so that we can really broadcast this message and inspire this culture of care that we're talking about. The second position that we would need would be a part-time gardener and a nursery assistant. Again, not only to steward these parcels, but also to coordinate the volunteer activities that Cameron will be looking to do and to establish also the educational activities that correspond to that work. Which brings me to the third part. Cameron now will have to focus on a large portion of his time, it's about a large portion of his time to establish this program, to establish these sites. So we have accounted for a percentage of his salary in our costs. And last but not least, we've included the hard costs and labor to establish these parcels given that we're going to be having formal agreements to restore them, but also to provide volunteers with the necessary materials and tools that they will need to engage in this work. Now to date, we've been able to secure private funding to sustain the current work of the birdhouse, which is approximately $100,000. However, in order for us to restore an additional six demonstration sites, we will need seed funding for the support that I just mentioned. And so today our budget and ask is in the total amount of $125,000 and $700 for two years. And that would be $62,850 annually. What that would cover and include, of course, is the staffing that I just mentioned, and then that's approximately $68,700. Sites, infrastructure and improvements. Again, we're gonna have formal agreements to store these parcels. So in order to keep our volunteers safe, we're gonna have to make some adjustments to access and to exit these places and also some minor irrigation work that we need to do. And we anticipate that to be a cost of about $19,000. And last but not least, the actual materials to do the restoration work and to outfit our volunteers. So that includes the tools, the trees, but also the way that we wanna work and do this work is to not only go and work, we wanna celebrate after. We want to celebrate around music and art or whatever it is. We've hosted a talent show, which was really cool before, as a gathering at our harvest festival. So some of these costs account for that. And we feel that it's important again to establish this culture of care and through the celebrations that we would host. Now, I want to make note that our total budget presented here does not reflect the 15% fee that ERC includes, but I know that Faye has sent over. We actually have an updated budget. So we have a different line item budget for you to consider and review. And we also had sent our overarching goal, meaning the full mama-jama budget to you as well previously, which is the full package. So what I will do now is pass it on to Mr. Cameron, who will talk about how we will educate and engage our members in the Bueri project. Should it be funded? Thank you. So that was looking at the Bueri. So we started macro. We went into the Bueri project kind of micro and we're pulling back out and seeing the other things that the birdhouse is gonna continue to do while the Bueri is ongoing. And these are things that fall outside of the budgetary ask that we're making, but we see that it's really a complimentary restoration strategy that we're not just on the land. We're gathering together to learn, to educate, to educate ourselves, to have difficult conversations, to seek solutions in the community context. And so that's through courses in ecosystem restoration, fire mitigation, which is such a concern for us here and fire mimicry, kind of bringing back some of those indigenous patterns to mimic traditional burning. Also our work with our Tongva instructor who are really excited to get programming here at the birdhouse. Music, arts and craft making. Again, it's all inspired by this biofilia. How are we really like building this culture of care through these cultural artifacts as well as through developing on the land base as well. Intentional conversations. This is our salon series where we're really seeking solutions to problems in a community context and continuing to work with volunteers from California and around the world through the ERC. This is a photo from our band of singers a while ago, a great performance we had here at the birdhouse. And this is one of our fearsome volunteers fully decked out with a compost scoop in hand. And we see that this restoration work of education engagement really brings back the inspiration and the social capital. So we are approaching DVC with this funding ask but on our side as well, we are working with our advisory council that we're getting together that includes John Lou as a restoration expert but also directors and producers in film and TV industry, financial impact planners, people who can really work to maximize the restoration impact, our visibility and the long-term financial sustainability. These are some of the advisors here and these are some of the partners that we've worked with over the last few years to start seeding this in terms of the ideas and establishing the name of the birdhouse and getting it on people's tongues so that they associate us with really, really positive development and ecosystem restoration work. So when we consider the future of the project, we're referring back to our birdhouse vision statement which is a lush and vibrant urban landscape where people are cooperating with nature to attain health and wellbeing born with genuine concern for each other and the environment. We hope that this spreads, we hope that this movement becomes contagious here, that they look to the example, they see things, they see an orchard go up on a hillside that they previously just saw was eroding and they want to know and they want to volunteer their properties so that our portfolio of parcels continues to grow over time. So we're actively managing more through our WERI program but that also that we're just inspiring other groups in other communities in different cities and in Los Angeles just to undertake the work and to go through their own local process of adapting and implementing this kind of strategy because we're driven by this question, not just how many trees can we plant but how can we ensure that the trees we plant are cared for across generations because this sort of seventh generation consciousness, I think it has to be built in right at the core of all this restoration work that we're doing if we really want this to be this kind of watershed moment in terms of planetary regeneration. So lastly, thank you so much on behalf of the Birdhouse for hearing our presentation today.