Sustainable building on the rez; Y2Y: hope for habitat

From earthTipi:

The Pine Ridge Reservation needs 6,000 sustainable homes. A few have already been built but many more are needed. In July and August Earth Tipi, with Texas Natural Builders, hope to build the first pallet home with light clay straw. It takes 200 pallets to build a home which costs $10,000.

Indian Country Today:

The home is constructed out of “cob”: a mixture of grass, sand and clay, and straw bale, materials known for their high insulation value.To help pay for supplies, the builder offered apprenticeships on natural home building. The construction of the home was divided into phases, which allowed apprentices to choose what phase they wanted to learn about while offering much needed labor and cash for the project. David Reed of Texas Natural Builders, a licensed contractor with 24 years of experience, said he will utilize wooden pallets and a light stray clay infill and earthen plaster to build the house, complete with a rainwater catchment on the roof. Reed says about 8 billion pallets in the world have gone unused, and this is “massive waste material that has the ability to become a home.” The building workshop begins July 23.

Ruffin Prevost brings news of Harvey Locke and the Yellowstone to Yukon's vision to readers of NewWest:

“You can’t isolate nature from the rest of nature and expect her to survive,” said Harvey Locke, a conservationist and former attorney who founded Yellowstone to Yukon. Management of Yellowstone bison herds has been the source of ongoing controversy in recent years, as the animals wander across the park’s northern boundaries in winter and move toward private lands.

Calvatia booniana or Calbovista subsculpta on ground that had flooded this Spring; likely a cottonwood stump and conifer wood chips buried under it