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 RESTORE is a weekly e-bulletin, published by SER International, linking you to the latest, breaking news stories from around the world keeping you up-to-date on a wide variety of topics related to ecological restoration including the latest funding opportunities. RESTORE is free to SER International members or can be subscribed to for only $20/year by visiting: www.ser.org/content/restoration_network.asp. Please send your news stories and articles to the RESTORE editor at info@ser.org. |
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Get Involved / Community-Based Restoration
Attention SER Members
Australasia Top 25 Restoration Projects Now Online
The Society for Restoration International and the Ecological Management and Restoration journal conducted an 18-month search for the top projects and an expert panel, including the journal's editor, selected the winners. The top 25 projects have been posted on a website that enables restoration scientists and managers to exchange information about their work.
http://www.globalrestorationnetwork.org/countries/australianew-zealand/
Setbacks and Surprises: Contributions Invited
The journal Restoration Ecology has initiated a new category of paper: "Setbacks and Surprises." This section aims to provide the opportunity to report the results of restoration projects that did not go as planned, projects that failed to meet the original goals or did not meet the goals without considerable changes to the original plans. If you have any queries contact the Managing Editor, Dr Susan Yates (restoration.ecology@uwa.edu.au).
Huge Discount on Wiley-Blackwell Products
Wiley-Blackwell has extended a discount to SER members for a limited time. You can now can receive a 25% discount on all of their product lines by using the following code: SDP18. Please visit their web site at: www.wiley.com to start shopping!
Discount on Island Press/SER Book Series
The discount code for SER members is 2SER.
http://www.islandpress.org/ser/index.html
Get Involved/Community-based Restoration
Montana: Mini Grants Assist Citizen Conservation Efforts
The Teaming with Wildlife Coalition includes nearly 250 Missouri organizations and businesses that support additional funding for fish, forest and wildlife conservation and related education and outdoor recreation. The coalition also supports implementation of Missouri's comprehensive wildlife strategy that focuses on partnerships to increase habitat work in priority places.
http://www.joplinindependent.com/display_article.php/amy.b1242688348
Arizona: Forest Officials Seek Public Comment in Burn Project
The Black Mesa and Lakeside ranger districts of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest is asking for participation in the public in advance of the Rodeo-Chediski Fire Prescribed Burn Project.
http://www.wmicentral.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20315529&BRD=2264&PAG=461&dept_id=506173&rfi=6
Conferences & Workshops
For a complete listing of conferences related to ecological restoration, please visit:
http://www.globalrestorationnetwork.org/conferences/ |
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People in the News
Eco-Diva: 15 Years Later, Why Bette Midler is Still Trying to Save New York
No one inspires picking up your trash or rockin' a sexy neckline quite like Bette Midler. From the earliest stages of her career in the '60s and '70s, the Divine Ms. M was worshiped on Broadway (and in the gay bathhouses) for letting it all hang out. There's a strength and purpose to her showgirl style, and for the past 15 years she's taken that spirit offstage with a mission: making New York one of the greenest -- and safest -- cities in the world. In this economic winter, she's determined to keep New York City from slipping back into the bad old days of the 1970s, with a little help from her new BFF, rapper 50 Cent.
http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/05/13/the-worrying-warrior-how-bette-midler-saved-new-york-and-still/
Counting Frogs: Keeping Track of Species Keeps Habitats Healthy
Matt Hokanson, 23, of Algonquin is a steward and frog monitor for Spring Creek Forest Preserve near the border of Hoffman Estates and South Barrington. What he does: Crouched in fields of prairie grass under moonlit skies, Hokanson leads workshops three times in the spring to teach new monitors how to count the population of frogs by the number of calls they hear.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-help-frogs-nzone-20may20,0,3204643.story
UA Hydrologist to Appear on History Channel Series
Kristine Uhlman of the Water Resources Research Center at The University of Arizona was interviewed for an upcoming "Life After People" episode on The History Channel. The new series offers visually rich scenarios of the fate of our built environment over time when no one is left to maintain our creations. The segment featuring Uhlman investigates how long it might take for groundwater levels and desert rivers to recover with people no longer diverting them.
http://uanews.org/node/25647
Absence of Rats is Cause for Federal Award
Ken Salazar, secretary of the Interior, presented The Nature Conservancy in Alaska a shared award, Partners in Conservation Award, in Washington, D.C. on May 7 for its role in the Rat Island Seabird Restoration Project with the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and Island Conservation. The Nature Conservancy also was honored for its contribution to the Southwest Alaska Salmon Habitat Partnership.
http://www.thedutchharborfisherman.com/news/show/6000 |
| New Books & Articles
New BBC Website: Earth News
Earth News is produced by the acclaimed BBC Natural History Unit based in Bristol. For over fifty years, the NHU has produced award-winning wildlife films and documentaries, including landmark series such as Blue Planet, Planet Earth, Natural World, Life In Cold Blood, Nature's Great Events, Yellowstone and Springwatch. Each year, up to seventy NHU expedition teams travel the world, visiting the most remote and inspiring locations, filming, reporting and celebrating life on Earth. Earth News is here to bring that world to you, and to tell the greatest story of all. The story of life. Earth News is edited by Matt Walker, an author of natural history news, books and scientific papers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/default.stm
Folk Wisdom
Living with Folk Wisdom (Volume 1) is a compendium of indigenous technical knowledge complemented with modern scientific thinking. The narratives offer an exploration into the world of ethno science covering a wide range of practical interest from climate to agriculture; medicine to food and nutrition. In lucid prose, the author paints the landscape of the beliefs and practices of our indigenous peoples and local communities revealing the science behind traditional wisdom.
http://avrotor.blogspot.com/2009/05/folk-wisdom.html
Study Reveals Critical Role of Evolutionary Processes in Species Coexistence and Diversity
A team of researchers, addressing long-standing conflicts in ecology and evolutionary science, has provided key directions for the future of community ecology. The team comprehensively synthesized emerging work that applies knowledge of evolutionary relationships among different species-phylogenetics-to understanding species interactions, ecosystems and biodiversity.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/w-src051909.php
WWF Study Says Climate Change Could Displace Millions In Asia's Coral Triangle
Coral reefs could disappear entirely from the Coral Triangle region of the Pacific Ocean by the end of the century, threatening the food supply and livelihoods for about 100 million people, according to a new study from World Wildlife Fund.
http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/media/press/2009/WWFPresitem12358.html |
| Biodiversity & Climate Change
Europe: Ghent Goes Vegetarian
The powers that be in the Flemish town have decided to promote eating vegetarian for one day every week, proclaiming Thursday "Veggie Dag". Not sure if the wording was theirs or whether translation is responsible for a term that's bound to irritate English-speaking vegetarians everywhere, but no matter, it's an interesting idea to turn a town semi-vegetarian. As a committed carnivore, Tony Naylor argued eloquently on this blog last year that less consumption of meat is an eminently responsible dietary response to the challenges of climate change, soaring costs of meat, and the myriad problems associated with industrial farming, the central thrust being we should get back to viewing a really nice bit of meat as a treat, rather like our grandparents did.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2009/may/14/ghent-vegetarian-city-healthy-belgium
California: Intense Study for Timber-to-vines
It will be the first project in Sonoma County analyzed on the basis of how much carbon it stores in the soil or releases into the atmosphere. The project, the largest timberland conversion ever proposed in the county, likely will go forward with state-required environmental studies this summer. If approved by the county Board of Supervisors, the project would place about 1,800 acres of vineyards on 20,000 acres of heavily logged land in the northwest section of the county outside Annapolis.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20090517/NEWS/905171027?Title=Intense-study-for-timber-to-vines
The Plant That Can Water Itself
In the deserts of Israel, there is a plant that waters itself. The plant, a type of rhubarb, has specially designed leaves that channel rain water to its roots. It is the only known plant in the world able to self-irrigate.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8049000/8049850.stm |
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India: Depleting Forest Cover - Government, MSU Join Hands to Restore Lost Nutrients
In what could give a new lease of life to the depleting forest cover, Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) and M S University (MSU) have embarked on a two-year project, where they will be treating seeds of indigenous trees growing in the forest with bacteria and fungi. The process will bring back the lost nutrients to the soil in the process, sources said.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Depleting-forest-cover--government--MSU-join-hands-to-restore-lost-nutrients/462174/
Louisiana: Mollicy Farm Levees to be Torn Down in Floodplain Restoration Project
The final phase of the largest floodplain reconnection project in North America will begin this summer with the demolition of a levee surrounding a 20,000-acre tract of land in the Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge in Morehouse Parish known as Mollicy Farms. Mollicy, which was cleared for farmland and surrounded by a 30-foot high levee in the 1960s, has already been replanted with 3 million native hardwood seedlings since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acquired the land in the early 1990s.
http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20090513/UPDATES01/90513021 |
| Wetland Restoration
Uganda: Mountains of the Moon' Get Nod for International Wetlands Protection
Part of the Rwenzori Mountains - home to some of the last glaciers in Africa and likely Ptolemy's 'Lunis Montae' - received international recognition on Wednesday as a protected wetland site under the international Ramsar convention, a major conservation decision that will help protect the region's vast ecological riches. The Rwenzori Ramsar Site covers a 99,500 hectares area of the mountain region located in western Uganda and bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the DRC, the mountains are part of Virunga National Park, which is also designated as a Ramsar Site and recognized as a World Heritage Site. http://www.panda.org/wwf_news/?164182/Mountains-of-the-Moon-get-nod-for-international-wetlands-protection |
River & Watershed Restoration
Connecticut: Native Plants Return in Stamford's Mill River Restoration
If a river herring had tried to swim up Mill River to spawn last spring, it likely would have been thwarted by a hulking concrete block beneath the Pulaski Street bridge -- a remnant of a dam dating to the 1800s. Today, the herring instead would encounter a riverbed engineered to encourage its life cycle. After demolishing and removing the dam in April, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers installed several thousand cubic yards of river stone to recreate the water bed, according to Adam Burnett, manager of the project for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The work is part of the ongoing $7.9 million Mill River restoration project, which city and federal officials celebrated in a ground-breaking ceremony Monday.
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/ci_12398597?source=most_emailed
Oregon: Whychus Creek's Restoration
Whychus Creek got 400,000 new residents Wednesday, as biologists placed bucketfuls of steelhead fry into the creek's shallow reaches. But the creek - which once boasted one of the biggest runs of steelhead in the Deschutes River Basin - needs help if it's going to be a fish-friendly waterway and healthy ecosystem. About half of Whychus Creek's 40-mile span was bulldozed decades ago, straightening channels and wiping out the pools and meanders where fish thrive. Irrigators divert as much as 90 percent of the creek's water. Small dams and other obstacles block fish from upstream sites. And a city - Sisters - is built along the creek's banks.
http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090514/NEWS0107/905140413/1005/NEWS01&nav_category=NEWS01 |
| Grassland Restoration
Nebraska: Restoration of Cather Prairie
Restoration work has begun on the 608-acre Willa Cather Memorial Prairie near Red Cloud. A controlled burn on about 200 acres of the prairie in April marked the start of the process of returning the land to pre-1900s conditions. Officials say the burn should reduce noxious weeds, promote a variety of native plants and help create habitat for animals.
http://www.kptm.com/Global/story.asp?S=10375901&nav=menu606_2_4 |
| Lake Restoration
Ambitious Lake Restoration Project in Central Greece
A large reservoir filling with flood runoff waters is expected to replenish the previously drained Lake Karla, in the Thessaly plain, via an ambitious reclamation project, one aimed at meeting the agriculture-dependent area's irrigation needs. Following its draining in 1962, a portion of the previous lake-bed was cultivated with, however, only mediocre results. Conversely, fish stock expectedly vanished and the region's entire micro-climate was negatively affected, including soil erosion, loss of biodiversity and reduced ground water.
http://www.ana.gr/anaweb/user/showplain?maindoc=7611312&maindocimg=7609792&service=144
Florida: Mill Creek Residents Tackle Pond Restoration
"We want community groups; it can be Boy Scout groups, churches and anyone who want to go a local project," said Robyn Felix, media relations manager at the regional water district, or SFWMD, "to promote and protect the water resource where they live." Shirley Parks, the secretary of the Mill Creek Home Owners Association Board of Directors, is directing the project. She applied for an online grant at www.watermatters.org in August, and the district awarded the Mill Creek Home Owners Association a $3,000 grant for the project. The money pays for the plants and advertising.
http://www.bradenton.com/living/living_green/story/1442457.html
UK: Lakes Face 'Complex' Challenges
Urgent measures are needed to protect lakes in England and Wales from pollution and climate change, according to the Environment Agency. The call for action comes as experts gather at Windermere in Cumbria to discuss ways to safeguard England's largest lake. Windermere faces threats including invasive species and farming pollution. The Agency said it planned to assess about 730 lakes to ensure they meet new European water standards.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cumbria/8056860.stm |
| Coastal & Marine Restoration
Maryland: $689K Awarded to Restore Shorelines
The Chesapeake Bay Trust, in conjunction with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Restoration Center (NOAA), the Maryland Department of the Environment, and the Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment, announced this morning the award of more than $689,000 in grants to promote living shorelines projects in the Chesapeake Bay region. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin was on hand to present the eleven awards at a ceremony held at a restoration site in St. Michaels, MD.
http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/business/bus_money_awarded_to_restore_shorelines_20090515 |
Wildlife Restoration
Canada: Bison Turn Back the Clock on a Patch of Prairie
In a remote part of the already remote Grasslands National Park in the southwest corner of Saskatchewan, a herd of plains bison is in the midst of calving season with another bumper crop of babies. Three years ago, 72 pure-blooded animals were introduced to the 181-square-kilometre refuge as part of a Parks Canada initiative to bring large herbivores to an area that hasn't felt bison hooves in more than 120 years. Now, that little herd has become prolific beyond expectations. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090519.wbison19art2242/BNStory/Science/home |
| Recreation & Tourism
Florida: Lido Beach Named of the Best Restored Beaches
Lido Beach is being recognized as one of the Best Restored Beaches for 2009 by the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association. "We are honored our preservation and enhancement efforts at Lido Beach have been recognized as some of the best in the nation," said Mayor Richard Clapp. "Our beaches are very important to both our residents and our visitors. This terrific restoration project is appreciated by all of us."
http://www.mysuncoast.com/Global/story.asp?S=10379628&nav=menu577_2 |
| Funding Opportunities
Indiana: American Water to Fund Innovative Environmental Projects - Closes June 1, 2009
Indiana American Water announced today that the application process is now open for its 2009 Environmental Grant Program to support innovative, community-based environmental projects that improve, restore or protect watersheds and community drinking water supplies. The company will award grants of up to $10,000. The program is designed to support diverse types of activities, such as watershed cleanups, reforestation efforts, biodiversity projects, streamside buffer restoration projects, wellhead protection initiatives and hazardous waste collection efforts.
http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?ID=35173
New Jersey: Assistance Available for Wetland Restoration - Closes June 1, 2009
The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has announced that applications will be accepted through Monday, June 1 for 2009 funding of wetland restoration projects on active or previously-farmed lands in New Jersey.
http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20090221/NEWS/90219061/1010/newsfront
Minnesota: Wetland Restoration Dollars Available - Closes June 5, 2009
Government money is available to compensate rural landowners interested in restoring wetlands on their property. Through June 5, landowners can sign up for payments through the state's Wetlands Reserve Program to restore wetlands that have been drained and have a history of being used for agriculture production. Payment rates are based on township-average land values.
http://www.hutchinsonleader.com/news/announcements/wetland-restoration-dollars-available-through-june-5-104
US: FishAmerica Foundation Request for Proposals - Closes June 22, 2009
FishAmerica Foundation annually requests proposals from public and private organizations and local, state and tribal governments to fund projects that result in on-the-ground habitat restoration and clearly demonstrate significant benefits to marine, estuarine or anadromous fisheries resources. Projects must involve community participation through an educational or volunteer component tied to the restoration activities. FishAmerica also requests that applicants strive for a 1:1 non-federal match (cash or in-kind) on project proposals.
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/habitat/restoration/projects_programs/crp/partners/fishamerica.html
US: National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program - Closes June 26, 2009
The National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program provides States with a means of protecting and restoring these valuable resources. Projects can include (1) acquisition of a real property interest (e.g., easement or fee title) in coastal lands or waters from willing sellers or partners (coastal wetlands ecosystems) for long-term conservation or (2) restoration, enhancement, or management of coastal wetlands ecosystems for long-term conservation.
http://www.grants.gov/search/search.do?mode=VIEW&flag2006=false&oppId=44928
Nebraska: USDA Offers Grassland Reserve Program Sign-up - Closes July 1, 2009
Nebraska landowners wishing to maintain grazing land in grass, including range and pasture land, can apply for funds through the Grassland Reserve Program by July 1, 2009 at any USDA Service Center according to a USDA official. "Applying for GRP is continuous however, ranking dates are established to evaluate and select applications for funding," said Steve Chick, State Conservationist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service. GRP is implemented jointly by the NRCS and the USDA Farm Service Agency. Landowners can start their applications at either USDA office.
http://www.chadrad.com/newsstory.cfm?story=14278
Pennsylvania: DEP Accepting Applications for Watershed and Flood Protection Grants - Closes July 17, 2009
Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger today announced that DEP is now accepting grant applications for watershed protection and restoration and flood protection projects under the Growing Greener Plus program, which allows applicants to seek funding for a variety of projects through a single application process.
http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/05-19-2009/0005029275&EDATE= | |
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