Klamath Wetland Education and Reseach Institute (KWERI: "query") is in the process of forming itself into an effective organization. Our vision is to move forward methodically to identify the needs of the resource management and wetlands research communities and then work to meet those needs to facilitate research efforts in the Klamath Basin. Therefore, our first task is to identify all those potential partners and interview them to discover what organizational and infrastructure needs would most help produce the studies needed to understand and manage the Basin wetlands.

We'll particularly explore the following options, but hope our interviews will uncover more:

• Raising money to support monitoring the progress of restoration efforts.
• Identifying and training fieldworkers to gather data and samples for research and monitoring projects.
• Field work supervision to facilitate studies from distant locations.
• Lab space and facilities near wetland sites for sample processing and analysis.
• Analytical services -- connections to preexisting services or provision of services lacking.
• Technical experise (and of what sort) to facilitate project design and data interpretation.
• Meeting rooms to provide a venue for interagency and intercollegiate communication.
• Communication amongst agencies and NGOs doing work in the area.
• Identifying landowners that would be interested in collaborations or have projects they'd like to develop.
• Helping landowners find research projects that would suit their lands and goals.
• Helping to find locations in the basin that are well-suited to particular research objectives.
• Facilitating contacts between outside researchers and local agencies and landowner.
• Coordinated symposia to facilitate communication.
• Low cost barracks facillites for offsite personnel to stay near research sites during the data season.
• Office space or equipment to support seasonal fieldwork efforts.
• Off road or on water transportation infrastructure to support field work.
• Familiarity with the wetland resources available in the Basin and the work under way.
• Any other needs or inhibitions that might stand in the way of expanding research and monitoring efforts.

Once we've identified a narrowed collection of objectives, a couple for the near term and a few for future development, we will develop a stategic plan around them. From that strategic plan we will derive operating plans, our business plan, a budget and a timeline. The strategic and business plans will identify target sources for funding to support specific projects. Our plans will address partnership development, program objectives, initial projects, and outreach to the public and specifically to schools.

One objective we already have identified is that of becoming a self-sustaining organization in the relatively near term. By that we mean that we will identify means of obtaining funding from those that we serve as well as regular contributions from the public. Those that we serve will include academic researchers, agencies of the government, educational institutions, and students (both school students as well as classes and workshops available to the public). Specifically because school students don't always have the resources available to contribute for such opportunities, we will immediately develop a scholarship fund to support such students in their studies. We are planning for our collaborators from universities, agencies and NGOs to also support our organization by providing funds for services provided to their projects once we have a trained workforce available. When we are successful, we expect to be able to compensate this workforce appropriate with their level of training and the degree to which they contribute to the organization. We will also develop projects specifically funded by grants and public donations.

Another specific element of our vision is to develop options for a wide variety of interests within our organization. We expect there will be young people that will approach us with an idea to gain some experience and credentials that will facilitate their gaining admission into academic institutions for further study and eventual careers those academic institutions as well as with land management agencies and NGOs. However, we would also like to make a place for those without academic ambitions, for helping individuals with naturalist ambitions that don't develop through further academic studies. We imagine providing opportunites for young and old alike that might facilitate and enrich such pursuits as guiding naturalist tours, ecotours, fishing trips or photography outings; pehaps we can complement research for writers; perhaps we can help birders understand more fully the habitat of their pursuits; generally, we would like to provide encouragement, a foundation and a focal point for a well educated naturalist industry to develop in this region.

We hope to collect together a critical mass of both experienced and inexperienced people that are genuinely interested in the wetlands of the Klamath Basin. We will seek those people from diverse backgrounds including diverse lifestyles and economic orientations, and we'll develop projects and programs to facilitate information flow amongst them. We envision that from this effort much good will flow to the local populations (human, animal and plant as well as the physical resources), stewardship of this beautiful land will be improved and facilitated, the economy of the region will benefit, and our understanding of our neighbors will be enhanced.