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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
The Institute for Applied Ecology is conducting a survey of international professionals, academics, students, etc. about their perspectives on restoration, climate change, and working with and moving organisms. Climate change may be the defining challenge to the field of restoration ecology this century. Please consider taking this survey if you have any connection to the process of habitat restoration (from policy to research to implementation) or want to make your views known. The survey is available at the following link:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JSFD728
Employment Opportunity: Senior Water Resource Engineer/Specialist
Are you committed to an ecologically sustainable future? Biohabitats is seeking a senior Water Resource Engineer/Specialist to join our Chesapeake/Delaware Bays Bioregion office (located in Baltimore, MD). This individual will be responsible for managing water resources engineering and water quality projects, designing and conducting field studies, performing hydraulic and hydrologic flow calculations, and preparing watershed management plans.
http://www.jobtarget.com/c/job.cfm?site_id=578&jb=6203533
Employment Opportunity: Water Resource Engineer/Specialist
Are you committed to an ecologically sustainable future? Biohabitats is seeking a Water Resource Engineer/Specialists to join our Hudson River Bioregion office (located in Glen Ridge, NJ) and our Southeast Bioregion office (located in Raleigh, NC). These individuals will be responsible for working on water resources engineering and water quality projects, conducting field studies, performing hydraulic and hydrologic flow calculations, and preparing watershed management plans.
http://www.jobtarget.com/c/job.cfm?site_id=578&jb=6203536
Employment Opportunity: Senior Restoration Ecologist/Conservation Biologist
Are you committed to an ecologically sustainable future? Biohabitats is seeking a Senior Restoration Ecologist/Conservation Biologist to join our Chesapeake/Delaware Bays Bioregion office (located in Baltimore, MD). This individual will be responsible for managing ecological restoration and conservation planning projects, conducting natural resources field studies, analyzing data, preparing conservation and watershed management plans, performing design and construction administration services for restoration projects across a wide diversity of ecosystems and scales.
http://www.jobtarget.com/c/job.cfm?site_id=578&jb=6203537
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
Philippines: Community and Scientists Work to Restore Reefs
Researchers from the CRTR Program are working with local communities to restore live coral cover to the reefs of Bolinao, Pangasian in the northwestern Philippines by sharing low-cost reef restoration techniques. Seventy people, including high school students, science teachers, village officials, volunteer overseers of village-level Marine Protected Areas, and fishers attended the first training session in April 2008. http://www.gefcoral.org/CRTRatIWC2009/Story9Communityrestorationofcoral/tabid/4302/language/en-US/Default.aspx
California: Ballona Wetlands Plant-In
Roy Van de Hoek and Marcia Hanscom, founders of The Ballona Institute, have been conducting tours of the Wetlands and working to preserve the estuary for several years. Their latest project is "The Ballona Plant-In," an all-volunteer effort to put more than 6000 native plants into the banks of the Esplanade, which will restore and enhance the lagoon ecosystem.
http://www.smmirror.com/MainPages/DisplayArticleDetails.asp?eid=11418
Michigan: Students Gather to Celebrate Wetland Restoration at Refuge
Two busloads of high school students from Trenton and Gibraltar, elected officials and residents gathered to celebrate the completion of a daylighting and wetland restoration at the refuge. The daylighting and wetland restoration is a project that has cleaned up a brownfield site, restored wetlands, treated storm water and provided for environmental education, Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano said.
http://www.thenewsherald.com/articles/2009/12/05/news/doc4b1aadb5d1b0c746382522.txt
California: Irvine Ranch Conservancy Creates Native Plant Farm
When conservationists try to restore areas where non-native plants have taken over, they may have to help the native plants along. And they sometimes turn to native seeds to do the job. That's why last month, the Irvine Ranch Conservancy created its first "native farm."
http://www.scpr.org/news/2009/12/04/oc-native-farm/
Conferences & Workshops
2010 Conference Listing Now Available on the GRN
http://www.globalrestorationnetwork.org/conferences/ |
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People in the News
Australia: Bush Partnership Wins a Major Award
A PARTNERSHIP between Alcoa of Australia, Greening Australia and Harvey River Restoration Taskforce has won a major category at the Western Australian Environment Awards in Perth on November 27. The partnership won the Bush, Land and Waterways category for a submission titled 'Nell's Block: restoring a landscape for wildlife on the Swan Coastal Plain Damplands.'
http://www.mandurahmail.com.au/news/local/news/general/bush-partnership-wins-a-major-award/1696508.aspx
Canada: Ontario Power Generation Receives Prestigious International Habitat Conservation and Education Award
Since 2000, OPG and its conservation partners have planted more than 3.8 million native trees and shrubs on more than 1,850 hectares of land, helping to capture carbon dioxide and help woodlands cope with climate change. Many OPG sites host annual habitat enhancement or monitoring events with the community, or are actively involved in outreach events, sending employees to share their knowledge within the community. http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/December2009/02/c7285.html
South Carolina: USC Professor Lands NASA Grant
To say University of South Carolina assistant professor of Geography Jean Ellis is attracted to water is putting it mildly. In August, she and a team of researchers landed a two-year, $398,000 grant to continue work she and the group had begun while at Stennis, focusing on land use and potential conservation and restoration efforts with the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program.
http://www.free-times.com/index.php?cat=1992912064025693&ShowArticle_ID=11010212093589958 |
| New Books & Articles
Mitigation Transforms Streams and Wetlands at Landscape Level
Wetland mitigation programs have aroused a fair bit of controversy in the conservation community in the United States. Under state and federal laws, anyone impacting wetlands is required to compensate by preserving, restoring, and/or creating similar habitat to achieve a no-net-loss. A new study indicates that these programs may actually alter the overall distribution of streams and wetlands across the landscape and consequently modify their function with both negative and positive consequences.
http://www.conservationmaven.com/frontpage/2009/12/4/mitigation-transforms-streams-and-wetlands-at-landscape-leve.html
Tropical Forests Affected by Habitat Fragmentation Store Less Biomass and Carbon Dioxide in the Long Term
Deforestation in tropical rain forests could have an even greater impact on climate change than has previously been thought. The combined biomass of a large number of small forest fragments left over after habitat fragmentation can be up to 40 per cent less than in a continuous natural forest of the same overall size. This is the conclusion reached by German and Brazilian researchers who used a simulation model on data from the Atlantic Forest, a coastal rain forest in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, around 88 per cent of which has already been cleared.
http://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=19147 |
| Biodiversity & Climate Change
The Earth Is Crying Out for Help
The living planet is signaling very clearly that current greenhouse gas concentrations are already too high. So the challenge becomes not only to find ways to reduce emissions from deforestation ("REDD") and other land-use change, but also to identify ways to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere. Because all living things are built of carbon, restoring ecosystems on a planetary scale can contribute in a meaningful way. Actions that can capture carbon include reforestation, restoring degraded grasslands and grazing lands and managing agriculture to return carbon into the soils.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/opinion/09iht-edlovejoy.html?_r=1
Act Naturally
Multibillion-dollar technological approaches to storing carbon, from pumping it into depleted oil wells to building massive carbon absorption systems, are grabbing people's imagination. At the same time - and inexplicably - a more convenient and less expensive method is being overlooked. Put simply, if we stop converting intact ecosystems, we would not only arrest 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, but we'd continue to have natural carbon sinks - all without investing in technological fixes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/opinion/08iht-edlopoukhine.html?_r=1 |
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Arizona: Burning Our Forests is the Best Way to Save Them
In Southern Arizona, scientists and land managers are enlisting environmentalists and residents of threatened settlements to support an effort to make the forests safer and healthier by reintroducing fire on a "landscape scale" to our Sky Island mountains and the grassy plains beneath them.
http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/320295
Hawaii: The Kohala Koaia Reforestation Corridor
The Koaia Corridor restoration project was first envisioned by community members and KWP partners in 2001-2002. The idea was to create a mauka to makai forested stream corridor to both protect existing pockets of native species within the gulches, as well as replant pasture areas to represent the diversity of native plant communities that formerly existed on this slope.
http://kohalanews.org/?p=242 |
| Wetland Restoration
Australia: Cattana Wetlands Now a Place of Beauty
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River & Watershed Restoration
Water Cap and Trade? Coming Soon To a Watershed Near You
One of the most innovative initiatives I learned about at last week's Corporate Water Footprinting Conference (Dec. 2-3, 2009) was the Water Restoration Certificates (WRC's) mechanism created by the Bonneville Environmental Foundation. At this point, it is the nation's first voluntary water restoration marketplace.
http://www.triplepundit.com/2009/12/water-cap-and-trade-coming-soon-to-a-watershed-near-you/
UK: River Wandle Welcomes New Fish
More than 2,500 young fish were released by Environment Agency (EA) fisheries teams in the River Wandle last week. The batches of chub, roach and dace have been specially reared and trained for life in the wild at the EA's Calverton Fish Farm in Nottinghamshire as part of the latest effort to restore the Wandle.
http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/local/wandsworthnews/4777463.River_Wandle_welcomes_new_fish/
Maryland: Annapolis Stream is Latest County Restoration Project
For years, an unnamed stream near Annapolis has been scrutinized by people on field trip after field trip after field trip. Now the stream, which eventually flows into Gingerville Creek and the South River, is getting some positive attention. The county is spending $288,000 to remove a massive stormwater pipe and turn it into a gentle, flowing stream that will treat stormwater and gradually disperse it downstream.
http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/env/2009/12/05-34/Our-Bay-Annapolis-stream-is-latest-county-restoration-project.html
Texas: Army Official Visits San Antonio River's Mission Reach
Flanked by an entourage of community leaders including County Judge Nelson Wolff, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy stood alongside the historic Espada Dam on Tuesday and listened to a presentation on its connection to the San Antonio River. Darcy was in town to tour the river and learn more about a very different transformation: the first phases of an ecosystem restoration project on the 8-mile stretch of the river south of downtown.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/78811967.html |
| Desertification & Arid Land Restoration
China: Lessons of the Loess
In 2005, the Chinese government, in cooperation with the World Bank, completed the world's largest watershed restoration on the upper banks of the Yellow River. Woefully under-publicized, the $500 million enterprise transformed an area of 35,000 square kilometers on the Loess Plateau - roughly the area of Belgium - from dusty wasteland to a verdant agricultural center.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/opinion/10iht-edmozur.html |
| Lake Restoration
Illinois: South Side Beaches Going Back to Nature
In the late 1990s, the Chicago Park District stopped grooming 11 acres of the man-made Montrose Beach -- and something incredible began to happen. A dune was formed naturally, and six state-listed rare plant species suddenly began to grow. Migrating birds began flocking to the site, and over time, more than 150 species have been observed, including the federally endangered piping plover. Now, the Park District is hoping to recreate the phenomenon on the southern part of the city's Lake Michigan beachfront, with two restoration projects under way from south of McCormick Place to Jackson Park at 63rd Street.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-lakefront-restoration-06-bddec06,0,2175646.story |
| Coastal & Marine Restoration
Video: Massachusetts: Oyster Reef Restoration in Wellfleet Bay
In partnership with The Nature Conservancy and the Town of Wellfleet and with the support of NOAA, Mass Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary is setting out to reestablish oyster habitat in Wellfleet Bay. Watch this educational video to learn about the different types of substrates we are experimenting with and how we hope this reef will continue to grow each year and encourage a diverse marine habitat.
http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/2009/12/04/oyster-reef-restoration-in-wellfleet-bay?blog=221
Virginia: Can Commerce Clean Up Bay?
Restoring the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal rivers has become an urgent priority of environmentalists and government policy-makers. The Rappahannock River Basin Commission and a coalition of community and business partners want to help move that process along with a novel program to be explored in a symposium next week. The aim is to create the Rappahannock Exchange, a regional marketplace for bay-friendly products and services.
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/122009/12032009/511780
New York: Vision Unveiled For "Mosaic Of Habitats" In The New York/New Jersey Estuary
"The primary goal of the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary Comprehensive Restoration Plan is to develop a mosaic of habitats that provides maximum ecological and societal benefits to the region," said Lisa Baron, project manager, and marine biologist with the U.S. Army Corps,' New York District. The plan was prepared in collaboration with the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary Program and more than sixty partnering organizations, including federal, state and local agencies, non-governmental organizations and regional stakeholders.
http://njtoday.net/2009/12/08/vision-unveiled-for-%E2%80%9Cmosaic-of-habitats%E2%80%9D-in-the-new-yorknew-jersey-estuary/ |
Wildlife Restoration
New Zealand: Kakariki Breeding on Motutapu 1st Time in 100 yrs
They've been gone for more than 100 years, but last week, a family of red-crowned parakeets was spotted flying down from the trees in a peaceful gully on Motutapu. Motutapu and Rangitoto are on their way to becoming pest-free after the Department of Conservation began a two-year campaign to rid the islands of seven remaining mammalian pests in June this year. Richard Griffiths, project manager for the Rangitoto and Motutapu restoration project, says it's exciting to see kakariki back so soon - but says we must look after them.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK0912/S00032.htm
Wyoming: A 'Nudge' for Swans
A wetlands advocate says a project to restore more than 600 acres of wetlands along the Gros Ventre River drainage could improve the Jackson Hole trumpeter swan population.
http://www.trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_684e5def-227b-5649-8998-c54cfa1f7f7a.html |
| Invasive Species
Illinois: Chicago Canal Poisoned to Keep Invasive Carp Out of Great Lakes
State and Federal agencies have begun poisoning a nearly 6-mile stretch of the Chicago Sanitary Ship Canal to kill off invasive Asian carp while maintenance is performed on an electrical barrier intended to keep the fish out of Lake Michigan.
http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/40780 |
| Urban Restoration
Washington: Bainbridge Council Approves Strawberry Plant Park Plan
Amid angry outbursts, thunderous gavel bangs and a bit of police intervention, the City Council on Wednesday approved a controversial plan to transform Strawberry Plant Park's shoreline into a fish-friendly beach. The grant-funded project will tear out a crumbling cannery foundation on the Eagle Harbor park's shore and replace it with a gently sloping beach aimed at reviving the area's natural functions
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/dec/03/bainbridge-council-approves-strawberry-plant-at/
Maryland: Portion of Maidens Choice Run Restored in West Baltimore
In 2005, the Maidens Choice Run streambed behind Beechfield Elementary School in West Baltimore was a dumping ground-it was overgrown, and everything from abandoned vehicles to plastic bottles to discarded washing machines littered the wooded area around the water. Four and a half years later, that streambed has finally been cleared. Today, Mayor Sheila Dixon and officials from the Army Corps of Engineers, the city's Bureau of Water and Wastewater, and the principal of Beechfield Elementary dedicated the Maidens Choice Run Restoration Project.
http://www.citypaper.com/digest.asp?id=19419 |
| Funding Opportunities
Delaware: Landowner Incentive Program Taking 2010 Applications - Closes December 14, 2009
The DNREC Division of Fish and Wildlife's Delaware Landowner Incentive Program (LIP) announced a request Wednesday for proposals from private landowners seeking to protect, enhance and/or restore habitat to benefit the First State's species of greatest conservation need. Projects may range from restoring or enhancing coastal plain ponds for tiger salamanders and controlling invasive species in bog turtle habitats to planting trees for Delmarva fox squirrels.
http://www.sussexcountian.com/news/x1158535811/Landowner-incentive-program-taking-2010-applications
India: Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund - Closes December 17, 2009
CEPF and the Western Ghats Regional Implementation Team (RIT) based in ATREE, Bangalore, invite Letters of Inquiry (LoIs) from civil society organizations such as non-governmental organizations, community-based organizations, academic institutions and private enterprises for biodiversity conservation projects in the Western Ghats. Applicants are expected to have adequate experience in implementing biodiversity conservation projects in the Western Ghats region of India.
http://www.atree.org/CEPF_WGhats/WGCall/
American River/NOAA Community-Based Restoration - Closes December 18, 2009
American Rivers seeks proposals for river restoration project grants as part of its partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Community-based Restoration Program. Program funding is provided through NOAA's Open Rivers Initiative, which seeks to enable environmental and economic renewal in local communities through the removal of stream barriers. This Partnership funds stream barrier removal projects that help restore riverine ecosystems, enhance public safety and community resilience, and have clear and identifiable benefits to diadromous fish populations. Projects in the Northeast (ME, NH, VT, MA, CT, RI), Mid-Atlantic (NY, NJ, PA, DE, VA, MD, DC), Northwest (WA, OR, ID), and California are eligible to apply. Projects located within the St. Lawrence/Great Lakes Basin are not eligible for funding at this time.
http://www.americanrivers.org/NOAAGrants
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Accepting Proposals for Great Lakes Restoration Funding - Closes January 22, 2010
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is requesting project pre-proposals that focus on the restoration of fish and/or wildlife resources and their habitats in the Great Lakes Basin. Supported in part by President Obama's Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a total of $8 million will be available to support projects this fiscal year. This represents the largest amount appropriated for this effort since the grants program began in 1998.
http://www.fws.gov/midwest/Fisheries/glfwra-grants.html
New Hampshire: Coastal Program Announces Grant Funding Opportunity - Closes February 1, 2010
The New Hampshire Coastal Program (NHCP) at the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services is currently accepting applications for its 2010 competitive grant round. The deadline is February 1, 2010 by 4 p.m. Through federal funding, NHCP enables projects that address coastal resources, like water quality protection, habitat restoration and climate change adaptation. Grants are offered on a competitive basis to eligible applicants, and at least a one to one match is required.
http://savegreatbay.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/coastal-program-announces-grant-funding-opportunity/
The Five Star Restoration Program - Closes February 11, 2010
A new funding opportunity exists for the Five Star/NRT Restoration Program. Applications are due via Easygrants (www.nfwf.org/easygrants) by Thursday, February 11, 2010. The Five Star Restoration Program seeks to develop community capacity to sustain local natural resources for future generations by providing modest financial assistance to diverse local partnerships for wetland, riparian, and coastal habitat restoration. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), National Association of Counties (NACo), Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC), in cooperation with the U.S. Environ-mental Protection Agency (EPA), Southern Company, and Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), are pleased to solicit applications for the 2010 Five Star Restoration Pro-gram and Nature Restoration Trust (www.nfwf.org/nrt). The 2010 RFP and proposal narrative are available for viewing on our website at http://www.nfwf.org/fivestar | |
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