When so much seems to be going wrong, the IRC is doing amazing environmental restoration work in our South Florida community! Their volunteer events allow us to get out and get our hands dirty, planting native plants and flowers that protect our land and coastlines. I also use their extensive Natives For Your Neighborhood tool whenever I am doing work in my garden, and recommend it to my friends and neighbors. It is an incredible resource to make sure that our actions have a positive impact on our environment. I especially love that I can find native butterfly plants for my backyard! I am so grateful for all of the opportunities and resources that the IRC provides! Incredible!
I did a volunteer event in Miami-Dade County a few years back. Seeing the restoration work in pine rocklands is inspiring and I'm glad I was able to be part of an volunteer day to see it in action.
I continue to support The Institute of Regional Conservation. The work of this non-profit is inspiring, admirable, and essential in protecting our ecosystem and native plants. George Gann and his superb staff are selflessly committed in opening awareness of the environment and encouraging others to get involved. - Jan Kinder
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I continue to support The Institute of Regional Conservation. The work of this non-profit is inspiring, admirable, and essential in protecting our ecosystem and native plants. George Gann and his superb staff are selflessly committed in opening awareness of the environment and encouraging others to get involved. - Jan Kinder
Recently discovering IRCs Natives for your Neighborhood website has really been great. I've been able to find native plants for my new yard. Very excited!
We had a very plesent and fun evening at the last fund raising event. It was great. Thank u for such a fine evening.
I first came across the Institute for Regional Conservation about 5 years as I began learning about South Florida’s flora. Their Floristic Inventory of South Florida Plants and their Natives for Your Neighborhood program have proven to be indispensable resources that I very regularly use (essentially on a daily basis!) for restoration-type projects, home landscaping, and research for work. Along with curating these databases, they do important ecological restoration work in South Florida, serving as a model for how this type of work should be approached and conducted.
Great organization willing to help young professionals get acclimated in the environmental space with willing teachers, open lines of communication, superb outreach, and a hard working crew.
I've had the pleasure of working together with the wonderful staff of the IRC on a restoration project within a military base in South Florida, where I hired IRC to come up with a restoration plan for a disturbed imperiled habitat. Their expertise and knowledge of local flora and habitats is unmatched in South Florida. Their website offers great resources that I use routinely while working as an environmental consultant, please check it out!
As a nature-lover in South Florida, getting to know the native plants in the area is super important! IRC has a "Natives for your Neighborhood" resource on their website, which helps people pick the right native plants for their area. There is also an amazing list of conservation areas of South Florida including plant inventories. This makes it easy to go on a scavenger hunt for different species and apply what you learn online. IRC's work is many years in the making and the data they have put out there for the public is pricless!
IRC is a leader in the field of native plant conservation and research in South Florida and beyond. Their publicly available Floristic Inventory of South Florida is an invaluable tool for any member of the public interested in native plants or professional working in the field.
The Institute Regional Conservation has been my go-to native plant information resource for years - even before I was a professional in the field. The Natives for Your Neighborhood tool is a must for landscape architects and homeowners alike.
Five stars aren’t enough - I give ten for the impact the organization is having in South Florida and Palm Beach County.
The Institute For Regional Conservation (IRC) is a fantastic resource for environmentally minded professionals in South Florida. As a landscape architect, I frequently consult the IRC website to learn about native plants and ecosystems. I regularly support their work through donations and also hire IRC for consulting on my projects when possible.
The Institute for Regional Conservation, or IRC for short, is an outstanding and recognized leader in the world of habitat conservation and restoration, both locally and globally. I have participated in several of their well-organized, local volunteer events over the years, and as part of my professional conservation work, I get to work closely with the entire organization, its leadership, staff, and research associates. I think very highly of them all.
George gives so much to the community and shares his knowledge so it is easy to understand. The efforts of the IRC make a global difference but the local impact is unmeasurable. Clean up projects, Native planting guides and offerings are the things that have effected me directly.
The Institute for Regional Conservation (IRC) is a critical group of passionate plant lovers educating and raising funds to continue their restoration of native plant communities. Our landscape architectural firm constantly uses IRC to research native plant material. George Gann is one of our preferred consultants as well. Keep up the good work!
I have been involved with IRC since 1984 and am proud of the results we generate year after year. We have a wide range of supporters who have been with us for many years and others for many days - all who share a common belief in IRC as an organization with integrity and a broad base of knowledge. Our mission has remained consistent: to restore, protect and manage biodiversity on a regional level and share our insights with others throughout the world.
I've been around IRC for decades, supporting, critiquing and generally helping out in small ways. Three observations. First, the people there manage it with tremendous efficiency - the bang for the conservation buck is very high compared to all the several organizations I've worked with or supported. Second, the execution of IRC's vision is pragmatic - real impact. Third, the work is visionary, designing solutions to the hardest conservation challenge, which is to not just protect plant and animal diversity in places where lots of people live, but restore it.
IRC has an impressive track record, from training conservation professionals who go on to lead other organizations, to providing the technical source material that empower both scientists and citizen scientists to protect biodiversity, to bringing together communities to care for the place they call home, to providing the thought leadership behind seminal publications, to the outright listing of dozens of critically endangered and threatened species, to setting standards in ecosystem management and restoration for towns, counties, states, and national parks. This impressive resume is well-documented and epitomizes the phrase thinking globally, acting locally.
My wife and I have been active supporters of the Institute of Regional Conservation for over six years. We have participated in their programs and have helped remove invasive species and planted native vegetation. We have also donated funds to this important non-profit. We have also used their important and free online resource to identify vegetation that is native to our specific zip code. The results have been outstanding and have yielded a lush backyard that birds and butterflies have enjoyed. We truly recommend the Institute of Regional Conservation.
Since the inception of the IRC’s free online resources years ago, I have been a regular user several times a week. I know I’m accessing high quality, comprehensive information about South Florida native plants and habitats, useful to everyone from gardeners and nature enthusiasts to scientists and resource managers. As a board member of IRC, I see from the inside what goes into the outstanding restoration work, scientific products, community volunteer projects and educational outreach. The employees, associates, volunteers, supporters and other board members who are devoted to these efforts are from all parts of the community. They include not just “tree huggers” but business owners and local leaders who know that conservation matters to our communities and want to help the IRC’s efforts to restore the link between people and nature.