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Our Mission

Identify and prioritize opportunities to collaborate on Virginia native plant communication and marketing efforts and form cohesive and coordinated messaging and strategies to increase local availability and use of native plants state-wide.

Background

In August 2011, after launching the first few regional campaigns in Virginia’s coastal zone, the Virginia CZM Program office reached out to the program’s state agency network and NGO partners engaged in native plant marketing efforts and initiated the Plant Virginia Natives Marketing Partnership (now under the Plant Virginia Natives Initiative) - a forum to collaborate and coordinate, leading to more consistent messaging to the general public and greater efficiencies in the use of limited resources.  

In 2013, the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) became a co-chair of the partnership to help fund and expand the reach of the collaborative beyond Virginia’s coastal zone. Virginia CZM and DWR co-coordinated two partner and public forums to inform the mission of the partnership.

The partnership drafted an Action Plan focused on strategies and actions to address four goals:

  1. Increase collaboration and coordination among partners engaged in native pant education, communication and marketing;

  2. Increase Virginia Grown native plant stock (percentage goal to be determined);

  3. Increase the availability of native plants at local plant retailers (percentage goal to be determined); and,

  4. Increase demand and use of Virginia native plants by landscape and land use professions, homeowners, landscaping and demonstration restoration projects on public and private lands.

See the membership of the Plant Virginia Natives Initiative, and the partnership's Action Plan.

Download fact sheet providing an overview of the Plant Virginia Natives Initiative - statewide partnership and regional native plant marketing campaigns (PDF).

For more information

Virginia Witmer
Coordinator, Plant Virginia Natives Initiative
Outreach Coordinator, Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program
Virginia.Witmer@deq.virginia.gov
(804) 659-1912

Plant Virginia Natives is a collaborative initiative engaging organizations, across Virginia’s coastal zone, piedmont and mountain regions, in state-wide and regional marketing strategies to increase the use and availability of native plants.

Questions, suggestions or comments about the initiative and this website?  
Please contact Virginia Witmer, Plant Virginia Natives Initiative Coordinator, at virginia.witmer@deq.virginia.gov .