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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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Attention SER Members
Get Involved / Community-Based Restoration
California: OC-based Back to Natives Helps Restore Habitat and Wilderness
Squirrels and chipmunks aren't the only ones gathering acorns this time of year. Volunteers have been harvesting acorns under and around oak trees in Caspers Wilderness Park in southeastern Orange County. This time, Back to Natives volunteers are collecting acorns. Next time, they might be weeding or planting in the Cleveland National Forest, Caspers Wilderness Park near San Juan Capistrano or Mason Regional Park in Irvine.
http://www.scpr.org/news/2010/01/01/oc-acorns/
New NWF Program: Erthnxt: Trees for the 21st Century
The National Wildlife Federation and the national tree-planting and youth education organization, Erthnxt, have combined forces to further environmental literacy, youth volunteerism, habitat restoration, and reversing global warming. Our joint aim is to provide opportunities for scouting and youth groups across America to learn how they can make a difference by planting and caring for trees.
http://blogs.nwf.org/arctic_promise/2009/12/new-nwf-program-erthnxttrees-for-the-21st-century.html
Illinois: Stewards Work to Restore Nearly 4,000 Acres to a Natural State
David Cook, 48 of Barrington Hills, is a volunteer with the Spring Creek Stewards, a non-profit organization that is helping to restore the prairie, savannas and wetlands of the 3,910-acre Spring Creek Forest Preserve in northwest Cook County. "For me it works out well," said Cook, a biologist and married father of two daughters who works as regional sales director for a biotech company. "I can take a lunch break if I am working from home and can pull invasive species or take a hike. I get to enjoy whatever it is we've done and see what kind of success we've had. I can also see what still needs to be done and plan that way.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northnorthwest/chi-help-stewards-nnw-dec30dec30,0,602729.story
Washington: Nature Consortium January Work Parties
Between Jan. 5 and Jan. 26, the Nature Consortium is hosting several urban forest restoration work parties at Pigeon Point. Work from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the West Duwamish Greenbelt. Each work party begins with a short informal forest ecology workshop. You will help remove invasive species, mulch, and plant native plants and trees in the city's largest remaining forest.
http://delridge.blogspot.com/2009/12/nature-consortium-january-work-parties.html
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People in the News
An Inspiring Story of Hands-on River Cleaning
If Chad Pregracke could say just one thing about his work it would be, "this is possibly the most rewarding job in the world." That's a remarkable statement, considering Pregracke's day job is hauling garbage out of rivers. He also travels throughout the world talking about river restoration, works with major corporations to coordinate and fund river clean-ups, and spends most of his time at his favorite place on Earth - the Mississippi River.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-Community/River-Cleaning-Mississippi-Pollution.aspx
California: 'Watershed' Moment at National Steinbeck Center
The Salinas landscape - and especially its waterscape - will be celebrated at the National Steinbeck Center in a series of events beginning next month. The exhibit, "The Creeks of Salinas: The Gabilan Watershed Experience," runs Feb. 5 through April 25. "A lot of Steinbeck's stories are about how landscapes shape the human condition," said Deborah Silguero, the museum's curator. "These are things we're relearning through our youth now. The more we learn about the environment, the more we realize we're in touch with what starts out up in the mountains - the watershed."
http://www.thecalifornian.com/article/20100105/NEWS01/1050308/1002/Watershed-moment-at-National-Steinbeck-Center |
| New Books & Articles
Potential of the Seedling Community of a Forest Fragment for Tropical Forest Restoration
Forest restoration projects are usually planted with a reduced number of species as compared to standing forests, largely due to the low availability of native species in seedling nurseries. In the present study, the potential of the native seedling community as a source of seedlings for forest restoration is analyzed. Several species that occurred in high densities in the seedling community are not presently available in regional forest nurseries and are therefore not used in restoration projects. This result and the high number of individuals and species found in the fragment suggest a great potential of this type of forest remnants as a source of highly diverse seedling banks for use in restoration projects.
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0103-90162009000600008&script=sci_abstract
Reducing Some Water Flow Rates May Bring Environmental Gains
Conservation projects often attempt to enhance the water-based transport of material, energy, and organisms in natural ecosystems. River restoration, for example, commonly includes boosting maximum flow rates. Yet in some highly disturbed landscapes, restoration of natural water flows may cause more harm than good, according to a study published in the January 2010 issue of BioScience.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100104122306.htm |
| Agro-Ecology
Colombia: Women Empowered by Restoring Desertified Land
Indigenous and rural women from southern Tolima, a province located in the heart of Colombia, are lending a hand to the bleak land around them, with the aim of simultaneously recovering the ecosystem and regaining their own dignity, in a community effort that is changing their environment and their lives.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49875 |
| Biodiversity & Climate Change
Resisting Global Ecological Change
The human family faces imminent and (Copenhagen would suggest) inevitable collapse of the biosphere - the thin layer of life upon an otherwise lifeless planet - that makes Earth habitable. Marshes and rivers and forests and fish are far more than resources - they and all natural ecosystems are a necessity for humanity's existence upon Earth. A few centuries of historically unprecedented explosion in human numbers and surging, albeit inequitable, consumption and resultant resource use, ecosystem destruction and pollution; is needlessly destroying being for all living things. Revolutionary action such as ending coal use, reforming industrial agriculture and protecting and restoring old forests and other natural ecosystems, is a requirement for the continuation of shared human being.
http://www.ecoearth.info/blog/2010/01/earth_meanders_resisting_globa.asp |
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Alabama: Restoration of Longleaf Pine Habitat
The Alabama Forestry Commission (AFC), in partnership with the Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries (WFF), is restoring longleaf pine through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. The award amount of $360,350 will be used to restore longleaf pine on Barbour County Wildlife Management Area and private lands.
http://leedsherald.com/wordpress/?p=1553
India: Regeneration of Degraded Forest Area
The Ministry of Environment and Forests is implementing National Afforestation Programme (NAP) Scheme for regeneration of degraded forests and adjoining areas in the country through a two-tier system. It includes decentralized mechanism of Forest Development Agency (FDA) at forest division level and Joint Forest Management Committees (JFMCs) at village level.
http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=56557 |
| Wetland Restoration
Australia: Scientists Save Cairns Wetlands
Scientists are hailing the restoration of coastal wetlands near Cairns, ruined by acid run-off more than 30 years ago, as a world first. Birds, fish and mangroves now thrive at the East Trinity site, which was devastated by severe acidification and mass fish kills after being drained and cleared for an ultimately unsuccessful sugar cane project. It now represents the first successful restoration of a large-scale coastal wetlands site ruined by acid run-off, according to the scientists behind the project.
http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2010/01/04/86085_local-news.html
Florida: Picayune Strand Restoration Groundbreaking: A Rare Opportunity to Fix Wildlife Habitat
Audubon applauded the groundbreaking of the Merritt Canal component of the Picayune Strand restoration project today because ultimately this restoration will revive 55,000 acres of wetland sloughs and upland habitat critical to sustain healthy wood stork, snail kite and manatee populations, as well as Florida Panthers, black bears, bald eagles and many other Western Everglades species.
http://audubonoffloridanews.org/?p=3595
Iowa: Work Begins on Wetlands Restoration
Under a hazy July sky, about 15 people picked their way through a tangled tract of grass, brush and vines along the railroad tracks near Davenport's new Fairmount Street library and Duck Creek. With pruning tools and gloved hands, they sliced down autumn olive trees and pulled up wild clover, helping to clear invasive plants from a native prairie remnant.
http://editorialmatters.lee.net/articles/2009/12/30/stories/top_stories/9tnews064.txt |
River & Watershed Restoration
Montana: Floodplain Restoration Next Up for Clark Fork River
If the Clark Fork River looked a little confused this past year, understand: It's been getting a lot of different instructions on how to get past Bonner. After getting shunted into a new bypass channel in 2008, the Clark Fork spent 2009 pining for the path it followed more than a century ago, before the Milltown Dam blocked its confluence with the Blackfoot River. Envirocon excavators finished removing more than 2.2 million cubic yards of sediment from the former reservoir this past year, digging down to the original soil horizon of stumps and pine needles from the early 1900s. All that material was hauled by rail car to Opportunity, until the railroad tracks themselves had to be pulled out.
http://www.missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/article_452d9ffa-f829-11de0in0in4c002e0.html
Florida: Species Return as Kissimmee River Restoration Makes Progress
On a recent chilly morning, Glenn whisked visitors on an airboat into the midst of the river's restoration. He cut the vessel's throbbing engine and waited for its propeller to stop turning and for the air to be still - sort of. Speckling the blue sky and the green vegetation in all directions were storks, herons, cranes, roseate spoonbills, ducks and ospreys. Their honks, squeaks and peeps rose as a noisy conversation from the river's newly revived wetlands. "This used to be cattle pasture," Glenn said.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/os-kissimmee-river-restoration-20100103,0,6275545.story |
| Coastal & Marine Restoration
Burma: Destruction of Mangrove Forests Increased Devastating Impact of Cyclone Nagris
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Wildlife Restoration
Oregon: Migratory Fish Show Big Comeback on the Columbia
This year may be remembered for the big comeback of the Columbia River's migratory fish. Coho salmon and steelhead had record returns. Sockeye successfully spawned at Lake Cle Elum for the first time in a century and improvements in fish habitat and to fish passage at dams helped improve survival for species that migrate to the ocean.
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/kennewick_pasco_richland/story/846562.html |
| Extractive Industries
Louisiana: Audubon Society Considers Allowing Oil and Gas Drilling at Sanctuary in Vermilion Parish
The National Audubon Society's Paul J. Rainey Sanctuary, a 26,000-acre rest stop for thousands of birds migrating south for winter, is one of Louisiana's best-kept wetlands. But preservation efforts by groups such as Audubon have been no match for coastal erosion. "It's getting to the point where there is so much damage, and it just costs so much money to contain the damage," said G. Paul Kemp, director of Audubon's Gulf Coast Initiative. "We know we're fighting a losing battle." That is why Audubon is considering a measure that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago: opening the sanctuary to oil and gas drilling. Profits would be used to pay for marsh restoration, multimillion-dollar land-building projects that Audubon cannot now afford.
http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2010/01/audubon_society_considers_allo.html |
| Invasive Species
Australia: Stopping Blackberries
Efforts to prevent the North American blackberry, Rudus laudatus spreading into the South West are about to be intensified with a new treatment program. It is an extension of work started by the Leschenault Catchment Council LCC to create a blackberry buffer zone from Australind to Darkan, with the Brunswick River and Williams-Collie Road as the northern boundary and Collie River and Coalfields Highway as the southern boundary
http://www.colliemail.com.au/news/local/news/general/stopping-blackberries/1718491.aspx |
| Urban Restoration
Uruguay: From Open Sewer to Green Parkway
For decades, the Miguelete, the main waterway running through the Uruguayan capital, was a virtual open sewer that the capital had turned its back on, along with its past as the site of the traditional Sunday promenade in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But an open air dump seemed to be its fate until a comprehensive effort launched in the late 1990s set out to do the seemingly impossible: clean up the Miguelete, which is little more than a river that emerges to the north of Montevideo between the Pereira and Grande hills and runs across the city before flowing into the Rio de la Plata estuary.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49884 |
| Funding Opportunities
Funding Opportunity for Students of Ecological Restoration! - Closes January 15, 2010
The Society of Ecological Restoration Northwest Chapter (a chapter of Society for Ecological Restoration International) is still accepting grant applications from students conducting research on the restoration of natural systems (e.g., forests, wetlands, shrub-steppe) within the Pacific Northwest eco-region (WA, OR, MT, ID, BC, Northern CA). Social or natural science graduate and upper-level undergraduate students are encouraged to apply. Three grants of up to $1,000 will be awarded. Application deadline is January 15, 2010. Preference will be given to applications from student members of SERNW (visit www.sernw.org) or a SERI student guild. Students can become a member of SERI for $10 and add SERNW membership for only $5, here: https://www.ser.org/member_registration.asp.
For more scholarship details and application procedures, see: https://www.ser.org/sernw/studentgrants.asp.
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/
Landowners Urged to Apply for Funds - Closes February 1, 2010
Landowners with eligible acreage are encouraged to apply for technical and funding assistance available through the Wetlands Reserve Program. The program is voluntary and seeks to provide the opportunity to create, restore, and enhance wetlands for long-term conservation and wildlife habitat protection. The deadline to apply is Feb. 1. Landowners who choose to participate may sell a conservation easement or enter into a cost-share restoration agreement with the USDA.
http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2009/dec/20/landowners-urged-apply-funds/
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
California: Bureau of Reclamation Seeks Klamath River Watershed Restoration Projects - Closes February 22, 2010
The Bureau of Reclamation's Klamath Basin Area Office, working in partnership with other Federal and State agencies, announces the availability of approximately $750,000 in Reclamation funds for the Klamath Basin Restoration Project in 2010. The goal of the program is to identify and provide funding for projects that will improve conditions for fish species listed under the Endangered Species Act that may be affected by the Klamath Reclamation Project including threatened coho salmon, endangered shortnose, and Lost River suckers. Reclamation will consider funding potential projects that specifically and convincingly show they will protect or improve conditions for these fish species. Proposals should address habitat for coho salmon in the Klamath River, associated side channels, sloughs, and the Klamath River estuary or endangered suckers in Upper Klamath Lake, Link River, Lake Ewuana/Keno Impoundment, and the Lost River watershed including Tule Lake, Clear Lake, and Gerber Reservoir.
http://yubanet.com/california/Bureau-of-Reclamation-Seeks-Klamath-River-Watershed-Restoration-Projects.php | |
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