MARSB
MARSB’s mission is to conserve and wisely manage the Mid-Atlantic Region’s wild seed resources, through scientific sampling, ethical collection, banking, and curation, and to encourage and actively contribute to the development of the Native Plant Material supply chain throughout the region.
MARSB Welcomes Two New Board Members
Peggy Olwell built the BLM's nationally recognized Native Seed Program, which promotes the use of native plants in habitat restoration projects. She was instrumental in developing the Plant Conservation Alliance (PCA) in 1994, a partnership of 17 federal government agencies and over 450 state and private organizations. She served as chair of the PCA Federal Committee and led the development of the National Seed Strategy in 2015. Peggy co-edited Restoring Diversity: Strategies for Reintroduction of Endangered Plants, and co-authored Seeds of Restoration Success: Wild Lands and Plant Diversity in the U.S. She has worked on plant conservation, restoration, and endangered species issues for more than 38 years in positions with the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Center for Plant Conservation, and US Fish and Wildlife Service. Peggy received her undergraduate degree in Botany from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and her master’s degree from Southern Methodist University. Peggy Olwell retired in 2025 as Program Lead for the Bureau of Land Management’s Plant Conservation and Restoration Program and is currently a Research Associate with Chicago Botanic Garden. Peggy focused her entire career on improving large-scale ecosystem restoration. She supported and conducted research, affected policy change, increased funding, built coalitions, and banked the foundational seed required for seed-based restoration, serving as a global model for those restoring our degraded planet. In 2025, Peggy received the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden’s John C. Pritzlaff Conservation Award and the Society for Ecological Restoration’s Theodore M. Sperry Award.
Leah Lenzo
Leah Lenzo studies native seed ecology and restoration and recently obtained her Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology at the University of Nevada, Reno in Dr. Elizabeth Leger's lab. Leah is originally from Rochester, New York and received her bachelor's in Biology and English from the College of Wooster in Ohio. From 2018 to 2020 she was the Seeds of Success National Curator and from 2020 to 2024 she served as the inaugural Treasurer for the International Network for Seed-based Restoration.
Peggy Olwell
MAJOR NEW INITIATIVE
Major New Effort to Fund a Mid Atlantic Native Seed Supply Chain
With the virtual collapse of federal funding this year, MARSB has spent a great deal of time focusing on redirecting supply chain efforts towards regional self-sufficiency. In early October, Director Ed Toth had an opportunity to address native plant supporters in Maryland, and he took the opportunity to clarify and simplify the supply chain narrative. In the presentation, Creating a Sustainable Native Plant Material Supply Chain for the Mid-Atlantic (or what he calls Native Plant Economics 101) Ed asks the audience to focus on nine key words to take away and consider for action. Listen to his talk below.
As leadership and funding continues to shift away from the federal level, collaborative and regional funding efforts will be required. While society is investing in related activities such as disaster recovery and climate resiliency, the allocation of funds for the key resource of native plant materials has been ignored. One solution posed by MARSB may be the development of compacts, which have been used successfully to generate revenue-neutral funds for other stated purposes. We explore this in the white paper, Growing Resilience Together: An Interstate Native Plant Compact Proposal. Download it as a pdf below.
RECENT NEWS
Please Consider Supporting our Work
The work of developing a robust mid-Atlantic region-wide native plant supply chain will take significant investment of time, talent, and money. Please consider how you can support this critically important ecological work.
