Nic Tarter

Lead Researcher, OICR Tiny Forest Initiative

Nic Tarter is an OICR Research Assistant, whose primary focus is the environment, most notably, the Institute’s Tiny Forest Initiative and the public defense of the Elliott State Forest, Oregon’s last remaining public-owned coastal forest.  He earned a B.A. in Creative Writing from Arizona State University, studied literary theory at the University of Copenhagen, and is currently completing a Graduate Certificate in Critical Theory and Creative Research at OICR.  Along with a cohort of students at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, he helped lead the inaugural literacy program “Over These Prison Walls,” based at the Donald E. Long Detention Center in northeast Portland.  He has written about the forests of the Pacific Northwest, his firsthand experiences as a wildland firefighter in the new age of megafires, and his extensive travels across the globe.  When not exploring remote lands and cultures, he can be found backpacking the alpine meadows of the Cascades, foraging for mushrooms in the Coast Range, or sleeping under the Milky Way in the Oregon Outback