Catherine Zimmerman

Catherine Zimmerman, an award-winning director of photography, celebrates her 46th year as a documentary filmmaker, working primarily on education and environmental issues. Environmental videos of hers include global warming documentaries for CNN Presents and New York Times Television; Save Rainforests/Save Lives, Fresh Farm Markets, Wildlife Without Borders: Connecting People and Nature in the Americas, and America’s Sustainable Garden: United States Botanic Garden.

She is also the writer and director of two compelling documentaries that show us how we can, and must, become stewards of the land in our own backyards and communities. Catherine’s goal and hope is that these projects will help fire up the movement toward creating biodiversity and making natural landscapes the new landscaping norm.

In Urban & Suburban Meadows, a book and a film, Catherine created a stunning and enticing introduction to meadowscaping that will encourage us do away with pesticides, reduce lawn and return our land to a beautiful, natural habitat for native plants and wildlife. To further promote this land management concept, Catherine’s latest film release, Hometown Habitat, Stories of Bringing Nature Home, is a call to action. This documentary explores how and why native plants are critical to the survival and vitality of local eco-systems. Included are inspiring stories of habitat heroes across the country who are working to bring back nature in their hometowns. https://themeadowproject.com/

Catherine is also a certified horticulturist and landscape designer based in Yellow Springs, Ohio. She is accredited in organic land care through the Northeast Organic Farmers Association and has designed and taught a course in organic landscaping for the USDA Graduate School Horticulture program.

In 2020 Catherine joined the Yellow Springs Environmental Commission and led the effort to certify the village as a Wildlife Habitat Community through the National Wildlife Federation. The certification was accomplished in seven months, a record according to NWF, and Yellow Springs was honored as one of the top ten NWF communities for 2020. Today Catherine is the chair of the Environmental Commission and involved in creating a Climate Action Stainability Plan for Yellow Springs.