In The Garden

Robin Kobaly is founder and President of The Power of Plants and the Executive Director of The SummerTree Institute, a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit corporation dedicated to providing new and refreshing viewpoints toward our environment, our place in it, and our responsibility to it. As a professional wildlife biologist and botanist with over thirty years of experience as an interpretive specialist, Robin designs and presents popular and highly-requested events and programs for adults and children.

Over the years, Robin has studied the indigenous native peoples in many regions and has researched, tested, and taught the uses of plants for food, medicine, tools, clothing, art, and native landscaping. Her passion for plants has led her to develop many innovating natural history programs.

Robin has developed and presented programs for television and radio broadcast as well as appearing as spokesperson for many different events focused on natural history. Robin has created and developed highly successful programs for The SummerTree Institute, including Saving the Ancients and Discovering The Ancients.

After receiving her Master’s Degree in Botany and Biology from the University of California Riverside, Robin traveled the world continuing her lifelong fascination with plants, birds and wildlife. Robin had a twenty-year career with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management as a botanist, wildlife biologist, and natural history interpreter. As the Preserve Manager for Big Morongo Canyon Preserve for nearly a decade, Robin led the creation of an acclaimed environmental education program and extensive boardwalk system for the preserve.

Robin has worked with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to train scientists from NASA and BLM in new techniques for vegetation and soils mapping from aerial photographs and satellite imagery. She has conducted inventories and monitored impacts to rare, threatened, and endangered plant species, and resolved conflicts between resource protection and human activities within “Watchable Wildlife Areas”, wildlife preserves, and Areas of Critical Environmental Concern.

There’s more information here about Robin’s work at The Power of Plants.