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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
2009 SER Board Elections - Update and Voting Procedures
The call for nominations for the 2009 SER Board elections closed on Monday, July 27, 2009. Since that date, the Board Development Committee has reviewed the nominated individuals to confirm their eligibility to run for office, and has determined that elections will be needed for three regions: Midwest U.S./Canada, Western U.S. and Pacific. Visit the adjoining link for a detailed set of instructions and absentee ballot to help you cast your vote.
https://www.ser.org/pdf/2009_election_procedures.pdf
Discount on Wiley-Blackwell Products: Code is SDP18
http://www.wiley.com
Discount on Island Press/SER Book Series: Code is 2SER
http://www.islandpress.org/ser/index.html
Get Involved/Community-Based Restoration
Florida: SCUBAnauts Find Threatened Staghorn Coral Thriving in the Keys
Some local scientists last week made a significant discovery in the Florida Keys: Staghorn coral that was farm-raised and transplanted two years ago appears to be thriving. But these aren't just any scientists. They're 21 highly trained and federally funded students from the Tampa Bay area, part of a group named the SCUBAnauts.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/article1026766.ece
South Carolina: Swash Rehabilitators Set to Party
The Withers Estuary Community Collaborative is hoping people will "come for the free lunch and leave with a vision for the future" after hearing about the group's plans for the restoration of the watershed in the middle of Myrtle Beach. Step by step, the collaborative is working to clean up the tidal basin pond, restore the natural habitat there and spread the rejuvenation to the land, businesses and neighborhoods around the pond, hoping to create a clean and sustainable environment with a healthy economy.
http://www.thesunnews.com/news/local/story/1010869.html
US: Input is Sought
Public comment is ready to be gathered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the coming weeks to organize a study for a future ecosystem restoration plan for the Missouri River. Public comment is being gathered at a series of twice-daily meetings starting Monday in Cheyenne, Wyo., and ending Sept. 2 in St. Charles, Mo.
http://www.willistonherald.com/articles/2009/08/08/news/doc4a7e08cda49df922226682.txt
Conferences & Workshops
California: Central Coast Bioengineering Field School - September 15-18, 2009
Salmonid Restoration Federation will host a Central Coast Bioengineering Field School September 15-18, 2009 in Arroyo Grande, California. The course will include classroom instruction with John McCullah of Salix Applied Earthcare who will teach techniques to restore riparian habitat, control erosion and stabilize banks. Participants will tour projects in San Luis Obispo County and learn how to build willow matresses and live siltation baffles as well as other structures. Growers can receive eight hours of Ag Waiver Education Credits through the Central Coast Water Quality Control Board for this course.
http://calsalmon.org/pdf/BioengineeringRegForm_042809.pdf
Washington: 36th Natural Areas Conference - September 15-18, 2009
The 36th Annual Natural Areas Conference, hosted by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, will examine the many edges in conservation land management, including edges for species, habitats, human society and the earth.
http://www.naturalarea.org/09Conference/program.html
RIACRE: Latin American Network for Ecological Restoration - November 9-13, 2009
La Red Iberoamericana y del Caribe de Restauración Ecológica (RIACRE) en conjunto con la Sociedad Brasilera de Recuperación de Áreas Degradadas (SOBRADE y la Fundación de Investigaciones Forestales de Paraná (FUPEF), con apoyo de la Universidad Federal de Paraná (UFPR) y la Empresa Brasilera de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (EMBRAPA), programaron para el período del 9 al 13 de Noviembre de 2009, en Curitiba, Estado de Paraná, Brasil, el Congreso Iberoamericano y del Caribe sobre Restauración Ecológica.
http://www.sobrade.com.br/riacre/
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
Joel Salatin, America's Most Influential Farmer, Talks Big Organic and the Future of Food
Joel Salatin is a self-described environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer, or as the New York Times calls him, "the high priest of the pasture." You may remember him from The Omnivore's Dilemma, in which he was profiled at length by Michael Pollan. Salatin's innovative farming system-where the animals live according to their "ness," the earth is used for symbiosis, and happiness and health is key-has gained attention from around the country, and he travels in the winter giving lectures and demonstrations.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/08/joel-salatin-americas-most-influential-farmer.php
At UB, A Collaborative Painting Conveys Complex Environmental Science
At the University at Buffalo, students are being trained in the interdisciplinary field of ecosystem restoration, in which they learn how to restore ecosystems damaged by natural or manmade influences. But communicating this new, multidisciplinary science to the outside world -- or even to one another -- has been a challenge. So they asked some local artists for help.
http://www.buffalo.edu/news/10339
Arizona: Saving the Pine Forest
Wally Covington, who has spent a quarter century reshaping the debate about forest management, leaned forward excitedly across the boundary between his biggest disappointment and his dearest hope. On one hand, lush grass and scattered flowers swayed in the dappled sunlight in an open forest dominated by widely spaced, ponderosa pines. On the other side of a wire fence huddled a dark, thick forest, with the smattering of grand old trees besieged by tangles of spindly saplings - the ground covered by pine needles rather than grass.
http://www.paysonroundup.com/news/2009/aug/07/saving_pine_forest/ |
| New Books & Articles
Golden Lion Tamarins Play Key Role in Seed Dispersal in Brazil's Mata Atlantica
Tracking seeds defecating by tamarians in the highly endangered Atlantic Forest in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Marina Janzantti Lapenta and Paula Procópio-de-Oliveira found that a quarter of the 88 species of plants consumed by golden lion tamarins germinated and reached juvenile stages over the course of their experiment, suggesting that the primate is playing an important role in forest recovery in areas where it has been reintroduced.
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0810-tcs_glt.html |
| Restoring Natural Capital (RNC)
US: Building Oregon's Ecosystem Marketplace
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| Agro-Ecology
Agroforestry & Sustainable Agriculture: Vast Potential to Lower Emissions, Store Carbon
Researchers working on a joint World Agroforestry Centre-United Nations Environment Programme project suggest that integrating agroforestry in farming systems on a massive scale would create a vital reservoir for carbon storage. If implemented over the next fifty years, agroforestry could result in 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide being removed from the atmosphere, about a third of the world's total carbon reduction challenge," Dennis Garrity, director general of the World Agroforestry Centre and co-chair of the Congress Global Organizing Committee, stated in a UNEP news release.
http://www.scitizen.com/stories/climate-change/2009/08/Agroforestry---Sustainable-Agriculture-Vast-Potential-to-Lower-Emissions-Store-Carbon/
Agroecology, Small Farms, and Food Sovereignty
The concepts of food sovereignty and ecologically based production systems have gained much attention in the last two decades. New approaches and technologies involving application of blended modern agroecological science and indigenous knowledge systems spearheaded by thousands of farmers, NGOs, and some government and academic institutions have been shown to enhance food security while conserving natural resources, biodiversity, and soil and water throughout hundreds of rural communities in several regions
http://www.monthlyreview.org/090810altieri.php |
| Biodiversity & Climate Change
"Acid Test" Documentary on Ocean Acidification Premieres Tonight
The 30 minute film, part of Discovery Planet Green's "Blue August" month of online and onscreen ocean coverage, is about the threat of ocean acidification, the gradual chemical changes in our waters linked to increased levels of carbon dioxide. Just how much CO2? Turns out that since the Industrial Revolution, the ocean has absorbed about one quarter of the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels.
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Arizona: Taking Disputes Out of Courtrooms the Aim of Agreements on Forest Service Projects
Long on opposing sides when it comes to forest use, timber interests and environmental groups have agreed on how thinning and prescribed burns should be done on nearly 1 million acres of Arizona's ponderosa pine forest. The upfront agreement could take tough disputes out of the courtroom and lead to fewer delays in implementing projects, U.S. Forest Service officials say.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/nation/ap/52793247.html
California: Forest Service Issues Decision on Aspen Community Restoration Project
The Forest Supervisor for the U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit (LTBMU) has approved a project to restore aspen stands at moderate to highest risk of loss throughout many areas of the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. The Aspen Community Restoration Project will address approximately 2,391 acres of National Forest System Lands, and include both aspen stands and surrounding areas. http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/ltbmu/news/2009/08/11-decision-aspen-rest.shtml |
| Wetland Restoration
UK: Restored Border Mires Bog Brings Floods of Joy for Wildlife
Famous as the retreat of the Mosstrooper outlaws who harried villages in Northumberland and the south of Scotland, the Border Mires have been reflooded in a £700,000 project after years as part of the country's strategic timber reserve. Rare mosses, dragonflies and wading birds have started to recolonise the revived wilderness just north of Hadrian's Wall where soggy peat hags - waterlogged blocks of peat underground - go as deep as 15 metres. Special machinery, including a tractor with tyres 2.5 metres wide to prevent it sinking, have removed the last traces of Forestry Commission conifers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/12/restored-border-mires-bog
Nebraska: Merrick Collects LiDAR for Rainwater Basin Project
Merrick & Company, working for Optimal Geomatics under a contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is collecting light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data over a 17,677-square-mile area in order to create a digital elevation model. The model will serve as part of the wetland restoration index, a tool that is being used to prioritize habitat protection and restoration activities to achieve the greatest wetland biological return for the habitat investment dollar and for stream restoration on the Platte River as part of the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program.
http://www10.giscafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?articleid=726739
California: Federal Monies Back Salt Pond Flow Project
Santa Clara Valley Water District announced it will receive a portion of federal monies under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, covering Pond A8 of the Alviso Slough Restoration Project, which is meant to increase the habitat of endangered or threatened species in the San Francisco Bay.
http://www.themilpitaspost.com/ci_12999133 |
River & Watershed Restoration
Kenya: The Wildebeest River is Running Dry
The great wildebeest migration is underway and more than a million of them, together with hundreds of thousands of zebras, are heading north from the endless plains of Tanzania's Serengeti region into the pastures of the Masai Mara in Kenya, seeking water and grass. The quintessential image of the migration is the crossing of the Mara river. But this year there is something missing - the water.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/a-river-ran-through-it-1769959.html
Michigan: Bofors-Nobel Lomac Settlement to Pay for Black Creek Restoration
Four natural resource restoration projects in Muskegon County will collectively get more than $330,000 as part of a settlement between the state and former owners of one of the county's most polluted sites.
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2009/08/settlement_to_pay_for_black_cr.html
Washington: Duwamish River Restoration Plan Moving Along
Restoring mudflats and marshes to the lower Duwamish River's shore is being studied--and has begun in one case. The Elliott Bay Duwamish River Natural Resources Trustees--representatives from five federal and state agencies plus the Muckleshoot and Suquamish tribes--recently took public comments on a draft restoration plan for that area.
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/408946_duwamish5.html |
| Grassland Restoration
Illinois: Jelke Creek work will be benefit
Restoration at Jelke Creek in Dundee Township is on track ecologically and environmentally through improving biodiversity and removing invasives. It takes a former quarry and dump and provides all-season, low-cost family recreation. A rolling prairie on conserved land with vistas of Jelke Creek and wildflowers is certainly better than an old quarry or some other development.
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=311852&src= |
| Coastal & Marine Restoration
Bleached Coral Reefs Bounce Back
Bleached and dying coral reefs are often held up as proof that global warming is laying waste to Earth's ecosystems. Now come reports that a number of reefs around the world are being brought back from the dead by dedicated oceanographers and conservationists. "The results are more than just promising; they are beautiful," says Baruch Rinkevich, a marine biologist at the National Institute of Oceanography in Haifa, Israel.
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3820
India: Coalition for Sustainability of Coastal Social-ecological Systems in Orissa Institutionalized
Underscoring the lack of coordination among various organizations working for mangrove protection, Jyotiraj Patra Team Leader CEPP and a doctoral scholar from the University of Oxford, encouraged participants to come together in unison to work and deliver at various levels. A consensus gradually emerged among these diverse groups to establish a systematic and coordinated mechanism to ensure concreted actions and thus resulted in the Coalition for the Sustainability of Coastal Social-ecological Systems in Orissa (SuCoSys-Orissa), the acronym translates in to 'a noble initiative' in Oriya and Hindi.
http://www.orissadiary.com/CurrentNews.asp?id=13775
Philippines: Coral Restoration Project Showcased
An award-winning coral-restoration project from the Philippines is being showcased in an exhibit on the importance of marine life at Lake Constance in Germany. Markus Akermann, chairman of the Holcim Foundation management board, said its pavilion on sustainable construction in the exhibit showcases the project Acanthasia of Lemuel Alfeche and Ronald Rodriguez from the Philippines, which seeks to address degradation of coral reefs.
http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/nation/14351-coral-restoration-project-showcased.html
Florida: Florida Bay's Ecology on the Brink of Collapse
Boat captain Tad Burke looks out over Florida Bay and sees an ecosystem that's dying as politicians, land owners and environmentalists bicker. Experts fear a collapse of the entire ecosystem, threatening not only some of the nation's most popular tourism destinations-Everglades National Park and the Florida Keys-but a commercial and recreational fishery worth millions of dollars.
http://www.kfsm.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-us-dying-florida-bay,0,3289918.story |
| Extractive Industries
Canada: Oilsands Ecosystem on the Road to Recovery
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| Invasive Species
South Africa: 150 Indigenous Yellowwood Trees Destroyed as Invasive Alien Species
A Working for Water team destroyed some 150 yellowwood trees in March this year by chopping them down and poisoning them. The trees, in the Drakensberg near Winterton were 50 to 100 years old. This emerged in a report drafted by an environmentalist who witnessed workers cutting up yellowwood trees. On investigation he found that an entrepreneur, who had executed contracts for Working for Water over the past six years, had destroyed the trees because she and her team apparently thought they were Black Wattles.
http://ecoworldly.com/2009/08/06/150-indigenous-yellowwood-trees-destroyed-as-invasive-alien-species-lessons-for-south-africa/ |
| Urban Restoration
Colorado: Community Supports Land Conservation, Has Commitment to Ecological Restoration
One of the Natural Areas Program's overarching goals is to improve previously disturbed lands to an ecologically desired or native condition (in fact, the city's Open Space Yes! ballot initiative passed in 2006 directs the program to do so). To that end, the city's native habitat restorations range from the aggressive control of weeds in urban areas, the conversion of retired dry-land wheat farms to native prairie, to the reclamation of gravel mine sites along the Poudre River.
http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20090810/NEWS01/908100319/1002/CUSTOMERSERVICE02/Community-supports-land-conservation--has-commitment-to-ecological-restoration
New York: Lower Bronx River Restoration Initiative
In 1997, the New York City Partnerships for Parks brought together community organizations, public agencies, and businesses for the common goal of restoring the river and improving access along its length. A focal point of their efforts was an abandoned concrete plant, now in city hands. Visionary residents saw the site's potential as a park and as a critical link in a greenway that could stretch the length of the river.
http://www.bronx.com/news/Society/445.html |
| Funding Opportunities
California Coastal Restoration Fund - Closes August 24, 2009.
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, together with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is requesting proposals for projects located within the Northern or Central Districts of California that benefit fish and wildlife species and the habitats upon which they depend. Types of project activities may include, but are not limited to, on-the-ground habitat conservation, improvement of public access areas, and projects that encourage collaboration and support local communities.
http://www.epa.gov/watershed/news.html
Shell Marina Habitat Program - Closes September 1, 2009
The Shell Marine Habitat Program is a partnership between the Shell Oil Company and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). The purpose of this partnership is to provide grants for projects that benefit marine and coastal habitats in and around the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the North Aleutian Basin, North Slope Borough, and Northwest Arctic Borough areas of Alaska.
http://www.epa.gov/watershed/news.html
NOAA RC National and Regional Partnership Grants - Closes September 30, 2009
The NOAA Restoration Center is currently soliciting applications for new three-year national and regional Partnerships to invest funding in the restoration of coastal and marine habitat nationwide, from 2010-2012. Through this solicitation, the NOAA Restoration Center seeks to openly compete funding available for multi-year national and regional habitat restoration Partnerships that will result in implementation of a wide-range of habitat restoration projects -- from locally-driven, hands-on projects that emphasize stewardship, to mid-scale, watershed-scale projects that yield significant ecological and socioeconomic benefits.
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/habitat/restoration/projects_programs/crp/partners_funding/natregpart.html
2010 St. Andrews Prize for the Environment - Closes October 31, 2009
Applications are invited from individuals, multi-disciplinary teams or community groups for the 2010 annual prize, consisting of an award of $75,000 USD for the winner and $25,000 USD for each of the two runners-up. Aimed at helping ordinary people find solutions to environmental problems, the Prize was launched 11 years ago and is recognized as a prestigious international initiative by the University of St Andrews, Scotland and ConocoPhillips, one of the world's leading energy companies, attracting entries from around the world. The focus is on environmental initiatives, but of course the most innovative and important usually come with gains to people in their locality.
http://www.thestandrewsprize.com/ | |
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