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RESTORE is distributed to current SER members. Make sure you don't miss a single issue!
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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. | |
Get Involved / Community-Based Restoration
Attention SER Members
The US Department of Labor's Occupational Information Network is seeking assistance from expert members of SER in the occupational category of Environmental Restoration Planners, with at least 5 years experience, to complete a series of occupational questionnaires, providing input for the O*NET database. This database is a service to employers, human resource professionals, job counselors, students, job seekers and labor market analysts across the country, providing information about the skills, abilities, activities and work context for about 900 occupations nationwide and is free to the American public. If you have questions about the project please contact Traci E. Davis, Business Liaison O*NET Operations Center, RTI International at 877-233-7348, Ext. 109 or by email tdavis@onet.rti.org. Further information about this initiative can be found at www.doleta.gov/programs/onet or https://onet.rti.org.
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
California: Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy
We Are Currently Seeking Volunteers For Restoration and For Help At Our Office! All volunteer work days are on Saturdays from 9am-noon unless otherwise specified. Please contact Jill Wittman to sign up or if you need more information at (310) 541-7613 ext. 201. http://www.pvplc.org/volunteering.shtml
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People in the News
Wetlands Expert Opens Hudson Bay Bioregion Office of Biohabitats, Inc.
Senior ecologist and wetland scientist Terry Doss recently opened the Hudson Bay Bioregion office of Biohabitats, Inc. ( http://www.biohabitats.com), the nation's leading ecological restoration, conservation planning and regenerative design firm. Biohabitats has worked in the Bioregion for years on projects such as the Jamaica Bay Watershed Protection Plan, New York City's Long Term Control Plan for stormwater management and the Bronx Zoo Master Plan. The new office, located in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, brings the company's unique talents closer to clients such as the New York District of the Army Corps of Engineers, the City of New York, the New Jersey Highlands Council and New York State. http://lifestyletom.com/path/rao10925686883ros/roin59012279889
Business of Biodiversity
In the opening session, emphasis was placed on identifying the impacts and dependencies of businesses on biodiversity and what risks and opportunities could come from this. Setting sector specific targets and pricing were two opportunities that policy makers identified. Also, Hon. Caroline Spelman MP encouraged businesses to become early adopters of ecosystem restoration as they would end up on top because they'd have first mover advantage. http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/business_of_biodiversity
Research at Elkhorn Slough guides conservation and restoration efforts
Kerstin Wasson aims to keep that from happening. Wasson is an adjunct professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz and research coordinator for the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. This dual role allows her to bring rigorous science to bear on habitat restoration efforts throughout Elkhorn Slough. Restoring the native oysters is just one aspect of a broad-based effort to do science-based ecosystem management at Elkhorn Slough. http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/press_releases/text.asp?pid=3940 |
| New Books & Articles
World's Mangroves Retreating At Alarming Rate: Study
The world's mangroves are being destroyed up to four times faster than other forests, costing millions of dollars in losses in areas such as fisheries and storm protection, a report said Wednesday. The study commissioned by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and The Nature Conservancy said a fifth of mangroves had been lost since 1980 and that they continued to be destroyed at a rate of around 0.7 percent a year by activities such as coastal construction and shrimp farming. http://planetark.org/wen/58788
The Carrifran Wildwood Story
In 2000, I attended the Society for Ecological Restoration's conference held in Liverpool, England that year. In the exhibitors' hall, I came across a display set up by Scotland's Borders Forest Trust (BFT), a non-profit organization that had just adopted a grassroots volunteer coalition called the Wildwood Group which had the audacious idea of re-creating a native forest in a valley that had been denuded and devastated by sheep and goats for centuries. Staffing the BFT's exhibit was Hugh Chalmers, whose title was Project Officer; Hugh was the on-the-ground man directly responsible for implementing the vision of the Wildwood Group. I was so captivated by Hugh's description of the project that (1) his inspiring vision literally choked me up as we were speaking, and (2) I sent BFT all of my remaining British pounds when I left England, and I have been a BFT member and supporter ever since. http://itonlycomesnaturally.blogspot.com/2010/07/carrifran-wildwood.html |
| Restoring Natural Capital (RNC)
Nature Conservancy Releases "Green" Economic Stimulus
The Nature Conservancy is advocating that a portion of stimulus funding go toward restoring natural systems. Such investment provides human and ecological benefits. For example, restored freshwater marshes can act as a natural seawall, holding water in times of flood, retaining water in times of drought and filtering out pollutants. Coastal marshes and oyster reefs are nursery grounds for fish and buffer the land against storms. Recognizing that the stimulus will provide much needed investment in the nation's roads, bridges, rails, dams, and levees, The Nature Conservancy is also calling for giving priority to hard infrastructure projects that are compatible with nature. Investing in these "green infrastructure" projects will ensure that stimulus investment will minimize additional environmental damage. Environmental restoration and green infrastructure projects would provide jobs for an array of Americans, including heavy equipment operators, surveyors, engineers, ecologists, landscape architects, hydrologists and even botanists who work in nurseries that offer local seedlings and other specialized plants for restoration http://lifestyletom.com/path/rao10925685937ros/roin59012445804 |
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)
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New Jersey: Baldpate Mountain ReforestationThis project will convert these fields to forest habitat by planting 1,660 native trees and shrubs (planting density of 200 per acre) and fencing field perimeters to avoid deer browsing on plantings and naturally recruited native trees and shrubs. Periodic control of invasive species and maintenance of exclosure fencing will occur as needed in 2011 and beyond. http://www.njconservationexchange.org/baldpate-mountain-reforestation |
| Grassland Restoration
New Jersey: Six Mile Run Grassland Restoration
In 2010, CRI awarded the New Jersey Audubon Society $16,000 through its RPWHP grant program. This grant will cover 50% of the costs of this grassland restoration project.The Six Mile Run Grassland restoration project encompasses 153 acres of State-owned land in Franklin Township, Somerset County and is part of a larger grassland restoration effort that generated over 300 acres of grassland habitat along Six Mile Run. This site has been identified as a priority site for grassland restoration in Central New Jersey.
http://www.njconservationexchange.org/six-mile-run-grassland-restoration |
| Coastal & Marine Restoration
Gov. Bobby Jindal presents plan for ecological, economic revitalization of coast
The state is requesting $9 billion for coastal restoration, freshwater diversion and flood-protection projects, most authorized by Congress in 2007 under the Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration Plan, be made available as soon as possible. Despite the state's prior commitment of several hundred million dollars, those projects have been stalled because the federal government has yet to provide its share of the financing, Jindal said. http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/07/gov_bobby_jindal_presents_plan.html
New Approach Defined: Reverse Decades of Decline to Restore the Gulf
Today The Nature Conservancy shares key actions that can begin to restore the Gulf's health and productivity, which directly impacts the lives and livelihoods of 24 million Americans from Florida to Texas, who rely on a healthy and vibrant Gulf of Mexico. "The future of the Gulf of Mexico is at stake," said Brian McPeek, Chief Conservation Strategy Officer and North American Regional Managing Director for The Nature Conservancy. "The Gulf tragedy has made it painfully clear just how closely linked healthy and vibrant human communities are to a healthy and resilient environment." http://www.nature.org/pressroom/press/press4579.html
Florida: Mosquito Lagoon Oyster Reef Restoration Receives $100,000
With the world losing many of its oyster reefs to overharvesting, disease and pollution, kids have stepped in and made a difference: Thanks to their votes, the Communities Helping Restore Oyster Reefs program managed by The Nature Conservancy in Florida recently received a $100,000 grant from Disney's Friends for Change: Project Green. The Communities Helping Restore Oyster Reefs program netted the most online votes from kids on Disney's Friends for Change among five habitat-restoration programs in the most recent phase of voting. The program distributes $1 million in grants to environmental causes over the course of a year. http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/florida/press/press4585.html |
Wildlife Restoration
China: Action Plan for Restoration of Wild Tiger Population
Historical reasons have made wild tiger population in extreme endangered state in China. A series of measures have been taken in China in laws and regulations, in construction of natural reserves, in restoration of habitat, in cracking down poaching and illegal trade to save and restore the wild population of this specie, such efforts result in gradual improvement in the population and the habitat of Chinese wild tigers. China will continue to extend and optimize the wild tigers' habit, explore the release of artificial bred tigers into nature, strengthen the conservation management, intensify law enforcement and engage in wide dissemination and education to create sound conditions for the restoration of wild tigers so that to achieve significant population growth and large scale extension of the habitat of wild tigers by 2022. http://www.globaltigerinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/China_NTRP.pdf |
| Extractive Industries
Gulf farmers asked to flood fields for migrating birds
A federal conservation agency said Monday that it would begin paying some gulf region farmers and ranchers to flood their fields so that migratory birds can find alternative rest and nesting grounds to oil-fouled habitats. The Migratory Bird Habitat Initiative will pay to use up to 150,000 acres of land "to provide feeding, loafing and resting areas for migratory birds," according to an announcement by the Agriculture Department's Natural Resources Conservation Service. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/29/nation/la-na-migratory-birds-20100629
An Online Pivot on the Gulf Oil Gusher
RestoreTheGulf.gov, is soon to be the only official outlet for information on the gulf oil disaster. The Obama administration, clearly hoping that pressure tests on the capped BP seabed oil well succeed, is trying to pivot its online narrative on the disaster from response to recovery. On July 7, the government unveiled RestoreTheGulf.gov, a government Web site that will eventually completely supplant the DeepwaterHorizonResponse.com site that was hurriedly created in the spring to provide the latest information on everything from the oil flow to fishery closures. One problem with that site from the start, to my mind, was the mashup of information coming from BP and the federal government. This lack of delineation perhaps reflected the murky, and troubling, sense of who was in charge through the first month or so. http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/an-online-pivot-on-the-gulf-oil-gusher/ |
| Invasive Species
Risk of Exotic Pets Morphing into Invasive Pests
Turtles, frogs, toads and many kinds of birds are imported into Mexico as pets by the thousands every year, but they constitute an environmental and economic threat when they are invasive exotic species. Since April a reform of the General Law on Wildlife has prohibited imports of such species, but in practice Mexico continues to allow these animals to enter the country. Pet shops rely on them for their lucrative trade. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52221 |
| Urban Restoration
Ecologists shun the urban jungle
Only one in six papers tackles inhabited areas. The world's top ecologists are failing to study the landscapes that most need work, and they risk delaying conservation efforts and making their subject irrelevant. That is the stark message from US researchers who have quantified the extent to which ecologists devote themselves to pristine wilderness at the expense of inhabited regions. The bias is a major problem for both the field and the environment, they say, because it is areas used by humans - which take up most of the Earth's land-mass - that are in most need of conservation.
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100716/full/news.2010.359.html |
| Funding Opportunities
California: Ecosystem Restoration on Agricultural Lands (ERAL) Grant funding applications are accepted on a year-round basis. The WCB meets four times each year, normally in February, May, August, and November to consider approval of funding for projects. http://www.wcb.ca.gov/ERAL/grants.html
CIAP Protection and Restoration of Critical Forested Habitats - Closes July 31, 2010 Approximately $16M of the CIAP funds allocated to the state of Louisiana are being used to develop and implement a Coastal Forest Conservation Initiative (CFCI) to conserve critical coastal forest habitat for storm damage reduction and the protection and restoration of rare, declining, or ecologically significant habitats. http://www.lacpra.org/index.cfm?md=pagebuilder&tmp=home&nid=72&pnid=2&pid=61&fmid=0&catid=0&elid=0
Gulf of Mexico Community-based Restoration Partnership - Closes September 1, 2010 The Gulf of Mexico Community-based Restoration Partnership (GCRP) invites proposals for its tenth round of citizen-driven habitat restoration projects. The partnership is seeking to fund on-the-ground projects to restore marine, estuarine, and riparian habitats to benefit living marine resources and to provide educational and social benefits by significantly involving the community. http://www.gulfmex.org/documents/y10/gcrp_rfp.pdf |
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