http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051226/NEWS/512260367/ 1002

 

Additional researched information:

 

Related reading, though not readily apparent at first glance (use keyword "management"): http://www.neiwpcc.org/Index.htm?links.htm~mainFrame (note the last link)

 

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Mary Droege: mdroege@tnc.org or 802-265-8645 Ext. 21 [The Nature Conservancy's Southern Lake Champlain Valley Program in Vermont and New York]

 

Global Invasive Species Initiative listserve digest #110

October 31, 2002

[Excerpt]

5. Aquatic nuisance species coordinator job (Vermont, USA)  From: Mary Droege mdroege@tnc.org 

Apply by November 4th, 2002 

Opportunity for bright, energetic, environmentally astute person with excellent communication and teamwork skills, to work at the Lake Champlain  Basin Program (LCBP) Office in Grand Isle, Vermont. Work with the LCBP staff to coordinate overall implementation of the Lake Champlain Basin  Aquatic Nuisance Species (ANS) Management Plan. Serve as liaison with technical and professional staff working on ANS issues in New York, Vermont, and  Quebec [Canada]. Requires three years related experience with BS degree in Environmental Science or related field. Job description available from LCBP at 802-372-3213 or NEIWPCC -- New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission http://www.neiwpcc -- at 978-323-7929. Apply by November 4th, 2002. Resume and short writing sample to NEIWPCC, Boott Mills South, 100 Foot of John Street, Lowell, MA 01852 or sbrown@neiwpcc.org  http://www.neiwpcc.org Equal Opportunity Employer. 

http://tncweeds.ucdavis.edu/listarch/arch110.html

 

Related reading, though not readily apparent at first glance (use keyword "management"): http://www.neiwpcc.org/Index.htm?links.htm~mainFrame (note the last link)

 

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Alumni Career Notes

 

(Note: A direct, and current, tie to Americorps -- and The Nature Conservancy and its employee, Mary Droege -- may be found at this document on page 46, excerpted and pasted below.)

 

July 29, 2005

 

The Office of Career Services at Vermont Law School

New England School of Law (NESL)

Boston, Massachusetts

PART-TIME AMERICORPS, NATURE CONSERVANCY – West Haven, VT*

The Nature Conservancy’s program in the Southern Lake Champlain Valley is now accepting applications for one half-time AmeriCorps member to fill a rewarding service opportunity beginning September 28, 2005. This position is titled the Volunteer Coordinator and Field Assistant. If interested, please send a completed AmeriCorps application http://www.vhcb.org/vcsp.html, a resume and two written letters of recommendation to: Mary Droege, Director of Ecological Management and Restoration; The Nature Conservancy, 115 Main Road, West Haven, Vermont 05743. Resumes must be postmarked by August 5, 2005, to be considered. EOE.

http://www.nesl.edu/CSO/Newsletters/Vermont072905.pdf (56 pages)

 

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Volunteers and Case Studies of Early Detection: TNC's Southern Lake Champlain Valley Program

 

Invasivespeciesinfo.gov - A gateway to Federal and State invasive species activities and programs

 

[Date is sometime in 2003]

 

News & Events --> Success Stories --> Volunteers and Case Studies of Early Detection --> TNC's Southern Lake Champlain Valley Program
News & Events --> What You Can Do --> Volunteers and Case Studies of Early Detection --> TNC's Southern Lake Champlain Valley Program
Manager's Toolkit --> Early Detection --> Volunteers and Case Studies of Early Detection --> TNC's Southern Lake Champlain Valley Program

The Early Detectives: How to Use Volunteers Against Invasive Species, Case Studies of Volunteer Early Detection Programs in the U.S.

The University of Richmond, Environmental Studies Program (2003)

Editors: Kyle Hegamyer, Stephen P. Nash, Peter D. Smallwood

Early Detection & Spot Removal Team of The Nature Conservancy's Southern Lake Champlain Valley Program

Contacts: Mary Droege, The Nature Conservancy's Southern Lake Champlain Valley Program in Vermont and New York
mdroege@tnc.org
802-265-8645
Internet Address: http://nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/newyork/volunteer/

 

Overview

 

This pilot program began in the 2001-2002 growing season in the Southern Lake Champlain Valley region of New York and Vermont. It used approximately ten volunteers at the beginning of program. However, that number dwindled to six by the end of the season. These volunteers worked in teams, each of which monitored one specific site. In these trips, the volunteers document the presence of fifteen priority invasive species.

Success

One of the major successes of the program is that the Nature Conservancy has learned many lessons from the inaugural year. At the end of the first year, Nature Conservancy staff asked the volunteers to provide feedback on what worked well and also to make suggestions for improvement.

One of the problems was that the list of species was too extensive for most of the volunteers to confidently master in one field season. Mary Droege, a staff worker at the Nature Conservancy, indicated that the ideal volunteer is one that has enough training in botany to be able to identify an invasive species fairly easily. The typical volunteer is someone who wants to do something productive with his or her time with an emphasis on aiding the environment. Thus, the typical volunteer may not have the necessary botany training to recognize all fifteen invasive species on the hot list.

Another problem was that some of the invasive species looked very similar to the native species. Thus, the Nature Conservancy staff has modified the program so that volunteers will be looking for fewer than six invasive species in a designated area and thus, they will be more likely to become confident in their identification of those species.

Another area for improvement is the field forms. Many volunteers thought they were too detailed and cumbersome. This task of documenting the species overwhelmed volunteers because they had to fill out moderately detailed information each time they found the species on the site. The Nature Conservancy has adapted its documentation forms.

Another challenge cited by volunteers was that some of the species put on the hot list were already too established in the ecosystem for any type of early invasion control methods. With early detection, the Conservancy's goal is to find an invasive species before it has become established in that ecosystem. If the species has already become established, it must be dealt with differently than if it were barely present in the system. Often the volunteers found that some of the more prevalent invasive species were found so frequently that the repetitive work of mapping and filing out the field form was too cumbersome. In addition, the Nature Conservancy found that these established species take too much time and effort to eradicate, so they had to be treated in a different manner than the true early detection species.

The Nature Conservancy slimmed down the intentions of its program to only search for the species that are at the stage where eradication at the site level is still possible. If the Nature Conservancy feels that they can eradicate or sufficiently control a species at a site with the proper time and effort, then they will include that species in the early detection program. This change will provide the volunteers with more gratifying and time-efficient work.

One final point that came out during the feedback sessions was the challenge of the repetitive work of monitoring the same tract of land three to four times in one season. Mary Droege said that if the volunteers visited the same area three or four times and found the same species on that spot of land, they became frustrated with having to repeatedly fill out the forms for the same species. In order to correct this deficiency in the project, the Nature Conservancy is going to change the area and the list of species that the volunteers are looking for. Instead of giving each volunteer the responsibility to watch for fifteen different species on a smaller area, the Nature Conservancy is going to give the volunteers three to four target invasive species to look for over a much larger area. This change in the program will allow the volunteers to become much more efficient in locating and processing the invasions and increase the volunteer's level of enjoyment as well.

By analyzing the needs of the volunteers, the Nature Conservancy has started the planning of a second pilot program for 2003. The lessons learned in the first program led to the changes that will be enacted in the second program. One of the major successes of the Early Detection and Spot Removal team has been its willingness to adapt its program to the comments, concerns, and needs of the volunteers.

The first pilot program of the Early Detection and Spot Removal team was successful in its opening year, in terms of monitoring and eradication. Mary Droege indicated that they have a more accurate picture of where the invasive species are and what types of habitats they are most likely to pop-up in. One major early detection success was the monitoring and quick eradication of one small plot of Garlic Mustard that had the potential to break out into a massive invasion in a floodplain habitat. Mary Droege indicated that a group of volunteers noticed the patch of Garlic mustard in its early stages and the necessary steps were taken to eradicate the species from that area.

To show their gratitude for this type of service and overall volunteering, each year the Nature Conservancy has a volunteer appreciation party. At that party, gifts are given to each volunteer who has volunteered a certain number of hours and a major gift is given to the person with the most hours.

What they wanted to know when beginning the program

More information prior to the beginning of the program could have avoided some of the early problems they had. Droege indicated that, when beginning the program, they only had their staff's knowledge of invasive species, a few regional surveys plotting some invasive species, a few similar programs in nearby states and the Internet as resources to start this program. If the Nature Conservancy had more information about other volunteer-based early detection program methodologies (i.e., "What are other programs doing?"), cost-efficient technologies (i.e., "What would be the best GPS unit, within a certain price range?") and methods to make data entry into GIS systems easier, [it] would have been able to better start their program.

Challenges of the Program

Since funding has been limited, their monitoring capabilities have been limited as well. In addition, volunteer turnover has been somewhat of a problem. They found that it was frustrating to go through the full-day training session with the volunteers and then have some volunteers decide not to participate a few weeks later. In order to correct this, the Nature Conservancy will carefully select a few volunteers and hope that they will have a higher probability to stay over a prolonged period of time.

Deciding on the Hot-List

When gathering the information for their hot-list of invasive species, the staff at the Nature Conservancy decided to prioritize the species based on which invasive species were the greatest threat to their conservation targets instead of looking at the entire broad landscape of the Southern Lake Champlain ecosystem. This allowed for a more concentrated list. They decided on the fastest-moving and most threatening species through personal knowledge and web-based research. The goal of listing a species was to anticipate the movement of those invasive species that were just on the edge of getting into the area or recent arrivals.

Quick Facts

Staffing: In 2001 this project was the primary responsibility of one full time staff person. Now, in 2003, 3 full-time employees share time in the program. In 2001 staff worked with roughly 10 trained volunteers at the start, which diminished ... to 6 by the end of the invasive season.

Operating Budget: Small amount of funding through public grants and private trusts. Not much money comes through the regular Nature Conservancy operating budget

Species Targeted:
Barberry (Berberis thunbergii and B. vulgaris)
Japanese Knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum)
Black swallow-wort (Vincetoxicum nigrum)
Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata)
Asiatic bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus)
Frog Bit (Hydrocharis morsusranae)
Phragmites (Phragmites australis)

Habitats Patrolled: deciduous forests

Location: USA, Vermont, New York

 

Report prepared by Brian Webb.

This Web site is developed and maintained by [the] USDA's National Agricultural Library  http://www.nal.usda.gov/

http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/community/detspot.shtml

 

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Maryland/District of Columbia Fire Management Program

 

[Excerpt from pages 2 and 3]

 

(Note: The goal is either to "...to restore and maintain a functional serpentine ecosystem, one that includes all of the component species (rare and common) and natural communities characteristic of serpentine systems prior to European colonization of North America" -- or to replicate "...a 1938 aerial photograph on file." Or perhaps it is to "maintain viable populations on site of all rare plant species currently known and/or to be discovered ..." -- or to EXPAND the "management," i.e., Control, to encompass: "...all of the Stateline -- Pennsylvania and Maryland -- ... sites." It is of huge significance that mention of danger/destruction to humans and all things that are deemed to have occurred AFTER "...European colonization..." -- or maybe after "...a 1938 aerial photograph on file" -- are missing from this statement: "... prescribed burning at Pilot should have no significant adverse impacts on individual plant or animal species or natural communities ..." The astute reader should consider that this is not about any

 

The Maryland/D.C. Fire Management Program currently has one site under fire management and seven targeted for future fire management. Prescribed burning is an important and essential management tool at Pilot Serpentine Barrens Preserve, located in the northeastern corner of Maryland.

This site is one end of a 10-mile long archipelago of serpentine sites stretching from Pennsylvania into Maryland that are believed to be linked botanically and zoologically.

All of the available evidence strongly supports the hypothesis that serpentine grasslands/savannas are fire-adapted and fire-maintained communities. Every rare plant documented at the site is an herbaceous species found only in open habitats. Fire in natural serpentine grasslands is necessary to prevent invasion by pine and cedar, which is followed by succession to woodland and forest.

Prescribed burning in "restored" areas cleared of trees is important for facilitating the return to dominance of typical serpentine species, by reducing organic soil depth, eliminating weeds, and preventing regrowth of woody species.

Manual removal of trees is required where decades of fire suppression has allowed mature forest to become established on serpentine substrate, but prescribed burning then becomes the management tool of choice in open, restored habitats.

The broad ecological goal at Pilot is to restore and maintain a functional serpentine ecosystem, one that includes all of the component species (rare and common) and natural communities characteristic of serpentine systems prior to European colonization of North America.

Further, the species and communities at Pilot would be biologically and ecologically integrated into the larger landscape-level ecosystem comprised of all of the Stateline (Pennsylvania and Maryland) Serpentine Barrens sites.

Specific long-term ecological objectives to be accomplished using manual vegetation removal and periodic prescribed burning include:

 

ensure that all serpentine communities -- grassland, oak savanna, pine-oak woodland, mixed forest -- are represented at the site.

 

restore and maintain open habitat -- grassland and/or savanna -- in an area equal to or greater than that present in a 1938 aerial photograph on file.

 

maintain viable populations on site of all rare plant species currently known and/or to be discovered at Pilot. Currently, the highest priority species is Serpentine aster (Aster depauperatus).

 

reduce or eliminate populations of exotic and invasive weed species such as Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora), black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia), and Japanese stiltgrass (Microstegium vimineum) present in the restored portions of grassland habitat, and to prevent or limit the new invasion of such species into the remnant grassland.

 

maintain viable populations or sub-populations of all animal species, especially rare moths and butterflies, currently known from the preserve, or present at one or more of the stateline serpentine sites.

 

Carried out in the appropriate seasons, and with careful consideration of parameters like frequency, intensity and area burned, prescribed burning at Pilot should have no significant adverse impacts on individual plant or animal species or natural communities at this site.

 

http://conserveonline.org/docs/2001/06/Maryland_DC.pdf (6 pages)