Restore is Going Bi-Weekly! 
SER is committed to provide exciting, up-to-date, restoration news to its membership through our e-bulletin, RESTORE. In an effort to provide high-quality news without cluttering your inbox, RESTORE will be published every other Wednesday as of May 30, 2012. Please contact the editor at info@ser.org with questions or concerns.

New SER Membership Structure Effective June 1, 2012
 In an effort to streamline membership registration and provide better quality member services, the SER Board of Directors approved a new membership fee structure for the first time since 2005. The new membership structure will go into effect on June 1, 2012. Click here for important details.

Comment on the Restoration Center's PEIS- Due May 31, 2012
NOAA is developing a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) to help us measure the impact of our restoration projects. To learn more about the PEIS process or make suggestions about issues they should consider, you can look over the latest documents online.

Brazil: IX Simposio Brasileiro de Recuperação de Áreas Degradadas-July 11-13
Recriando Ambientes Sustentáveis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

SER-Great Basin: Post-Fire Land Restoration Workshop & Field Trip - July 12-13
The workshop will be held July 12-13, 2012 at the Best Western Airport Plaza in Reno, Nevada.

Utah: Field Tour and Summer Meeting-SER Great Basin -June 18-20
SER-Great Bain and The Utah Chapter of the Society for Range Management will hold a combined meeting and field tour on June 18-20, 2012 in Ephraim, Utah.

Texas: Soil & Water Conservation Society- 2012 Annual Conference- July 22-25

SER-Texas: 2012 Annual TxSER Conference- Call for Papers- Due Aug 31
TxSER will hold their annual conference from Nov. 2-4, 2012 in Weslaco, Texas.

Thicket Forum 2012: Reconnecting People and Thicket- Sept. 4-6

SER-Europe: The 8th European Conference on Ecological Restoration-Sept 9-14

 EcoSummit 2012-Ecological Sustainability- Sept. 30- Oct. 5

6^th Annual Conference on Coastal and Estuarine Habitat Restoration- Oct. 20-24

Florida: Creation and Restoration or Wetlands Workshop- November 8-10

SER-Australasia: Inaugural Conference- -Nov 28-30

2012 Conference Listing on the Global Restoration Network (GRN)

SER Members receive 25% off Island Press book purchases. Contact caroline@ser.org for details!

Florida Ecologist Wins WRA Morley Medal for Contributions to Science
Andre Clewell, an ecologist and member of Western Reserve Academy's Class of 1952 will be back on campus next month to receive the 2012 Edward W. Morley Medal, awarded annually to a WRA alumnus for making significant contributions in the field of science. Clewell will receive the award at the Celebration of Excellence on June 9 in the WRA Chapel during Reunion Weekend.

Restoring the Earth: Botanic Gardens join forces to launch Ecological Restoration Alliance
Botanic gardens around the world will sign an historic agreement on 23 May 2012 to restore the world's damaged ecosystems. Responding to a United Nations target to restore at least 15% of the world's damaged ecosystems by 2020, The Alliance, which will be coordinated by BGCI has ambitious aims, with a plan to restore 100 damaged, degraded or destroyed ecosystems.

Ecological Restoration and Environmental Change: Renewing Damaged Ecosystems
Ecological Restoration and Environmental Change, by SER's own Stuart Allison, addresses and challenges some of these issues which question the core values of the science and practice of restoration ecology. It analyzes the paradox arising from the desire to produce ecological restorations that fit within an historical ecological context, produce positive environmental benefits and also result in landscapes with social meaning.

Restoration Ecology: The New Frontier, Second edition
 This is an accessible textbook for senior undergraduate and graduate level students, and early career scientists. The book also provides a solid scientific background for managers, volunteers, and mid-career professionals involved in the practice of ecological restoration. Enlarged, enhanced and internationalized edition of the first restoration ecology textbook to be published, with foreword by Dr. Steven Whisnant of Texas A&M University and Chair of the Society of Ecological Restoration.

Seagrass Beds Store 20 Billion Tons of Carbon
Just below the ocean's surface lies a carbon powerhouse: seagrass meadows. New research in Nature Geoscience estimates that the world's seagrass meadows conservatively store 19.9 billion metric tons of carbon, even though the threatened marine ecosystems make up only 0.2 percent of Earth's surface. The findings lend support to the idea that seagrass protection and restoration could play a major role in mitigating climate change.

US: A $1 Billion Question: Are Stream Restoration Projects Working?
The nation's $1 billion stream restoration industry needs to do more to ensure that projects are guided by science, according to the co-editor of a new American Geophysical Union monograph reviewing the state of the field. Because practice has outpaced research, projects on real waterways often turn out to be experiments themselves, and many fail. The new AGU monograph, "Stream Restoration in Dynamic Fluvial Systems: Scientific Approaches, Analyses, and Tools," provides detailed explanations of best practices grounded in science.

US: USDA to Spend $32 Million on Wetland Restoration
A $32 million set of projects across seven states in the Mississippi River Basin will restore a variety of wetland types, from Iowa to Louisiana. The bulk of the money, $20 million, will go to restoration of hardwood bottomland along the Mississippi River, from Wickliff, Ky., to Baton Rouge, La. The work will focus on acreage in the batture ó land between the water's edge and the levee. The rich land floods regularly and supports a variety of wildlife.

California: Landowner Holding up Salt River Project
The Salt River project -- a $12 million to $16 million restoration project nearly 30 years in the making that Humboldt County Supervisor Jimmy Smith called the biggest ever in Northern California -- is being held up by one property owner. HCRCD Watershed Coordinator Doreen Hansen said her agency has been unable to reach an agreement with one of 40 landowners.

India: River Restoration Project in Slow Lane
The Pune Municipal Corporation's (PMC) 'Restoration of Mula-Mutha Rivers' project, planned in 2008 under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) is progressing at a snail's pace. The project was not to merely restore and beautify the Mutha, but also develop it as water transport system to reduce pollution and congestion on the city's roads.

China: 3 million people in Ningxia to benefit from desertification control
The World Bank Board of Executive Directors on Thursday approved a loan of US $80million to the People's Republic of China to help control desertification and land degradation. The Ningxia Desertification Control and Ecological Protection Project aims to assist the Chinese government in its efforts to address and reverse desertification and degradation.

Jamaica: $23.8 Million for Coastline Protection
A sum of $23.8 million has been allocated in the 2012/13 Estimates of Expenditure, to further fund efforts by the Ministry of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change to enhance the resilience of the local agricultural sector and the island's coastal areas to the impact of weather related elements. NEPA's aspect aims to develop: guidelines/technical standards for beach restoration and shoreline protection; restoration of impacted sea-grass; a climate risk atlas for use in the development planning process; and more.

Indonesia: EcoReef Antlers for Coral Reef Restoration
EcoReefs has been used for the first time in the Middle East by Dolphin Energy in Qatar, as part of their corporate social responsibility projects, to restore local reefs. Installed already in Qatar, reef recovery time can be increased from 50 to 100 years to 7 to 15 with these ceramic antler-like artificial reefs. Seacology and EcoReefs have worked collaboratively to restructure the reefs of Manado Tua Island, in Indonesia, which were completely wiped out in 2003 and have since then recovered.

Louisiana: Smooth Cordgrass Featured at Coastal Plants Field Day
Plant producers, representatives from government agencies and private companies attended a unique field day to discuss the certification of wetland grasses during a field day at the LSU AgCenter Burden Center in Baton Rouge in April. To reduce erosion, smooth cordgrass plugs are planted in saline marsh restoration projects each year. In most cases, the only smooth cordgrass variety used is Vermilion, which was released by NRCS in 1989.

Minnesota: At the Festival of Birds: Trumpeting the return of the swan
For thousands of years, trumpeter swans lived peacefully by the lakes and wetlands of the Midwestern United States, central Canada and up into Alaska. Yet by the mid-1800s, these majestic birds had all but disappeared from the United States. Today, however, there are upwards of 6,000 trumpeter swans living in Minnesota alone.

Virginia: Elk Begin Road to Recovery 
Friday morning, Virginia got its first invited elk in nearly a century, as 11 of the majestic animals were released into a holding pen high atop an open knoll on a reclaimed strip mine site in Buchanan County. The elk are the first of a planned 75 that will be brought into Buchanan County over the next three years for a restoration project that's been more than a decade in the making.

Texas: Memorial Park works to build new, healthy forest
Trucks and crews are rolling through Memorial Park removing non-native plants as part of the first phase of the largest reforestation project at an urban park in the U.S. to ultimately build a healthier forest.

Pennsylvania: Bringing Urban Waterfronts Back to Life: Philadelphia 
The new 4.5-acre riverfront oasis is Philadelphia's newest park and includes a river overlook, fishing pier, picnic tables, connections to a trail system, riverbank forest, and a living shoreline with tidal wetlands. In an effort to continue this momentum, NOAA is also coordinating with other federal agencies, the city, and community groups in preparing an application for Philadelphia to become an Urban Waters Federal Partnership site, a program under America's Great Outdoors Initiative.

Philippines: Bantayan Island- Classroom of the sea
The idyllic island is not just for beach recreational activities. It also serves as a virtual classroom of the School of the Sea and Earth Advocates (SEA)-an experiential training center for teachers and community leaders to restore marine environment and learn sustainable living. THE SEA project launched a push for restorative ecotourism on Bantayan Island.

Great Lakes Restoration Initiative: 20 Million Available from EPA- Due May 24, 2012
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced that it is requesting applications from states, municipalities, tribes, universities and nonprofit organizations for new projects to restore and protect the Great Lakes. EPA will distribute approximately $20 million through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grant program during Fiscal Year 2012.

US: Chesapeake Bay Trust Restoration Grant Programs- Due July 6, 2012
The Restoration Grant Program supports projects that provide accessible funds to organizations and agencies for demonstration-scale, community-based, on-the-ground restoration projects. Approximately $500,000 is available for the 2012-13 Restoration Grant Program. Applicants for projects identified in or based on a watershed plan may request up to $50,000. Applicants for projects not identified in or based on a watershed plan may request up to $25,000.

UK: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew -- Small Grants 2012
Through the Bentham-Moxon Trust, Kew Gardens (UK) makes 30 to 40 small grants per year to botanists and horticulturalists for plant collection and field research; international visits or work at Kew; travel and conferences; and other project support. Preference is for grants that involve a developing country. The closing date for applications is 30 September 2012.

 Australia: The Endeavour Awards 
The Endeavor Award is the Australian Government's internationally competitive, merit-based scholarship program providing opportunities for citizens of the Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas to undertake study, research and professional development in Australia. Awards are also available for Australians to undertake study, research and professional development abroad. 

New Hampshire: Grant Funding for Wetlands Restoration and Drinking Water Protection
The Aquatic Resource Mitigation Fund grants are available for eligible wetland restoration, land protection or habitat improvement projects; and drinking water supply protection grants are available for lands in the southern I-93 corridor and Lake Massabesic Watershed. Aquatic Resource Mitigation (ARM) Fund payments are collected according to nine service areas.

US: Emergency Forest Restoration Program
USDA Farm Service Agency's (FSA) Emergency Forest Restoration Program (EFRP) provides payments to eligible owners of nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) land in order to carry out emergency measures to restore land damaged by a natural disaster.

Earth Island Institute: Supporting community-based wetland restoration initiatives
Through the Small Grants Program, Earth Island Institute has been able to support locally based restoration efforts to do just that. Small grassroots efforts to restore the coastal habitats of Southern California, which have been depleted by an astounding 98%, have been slowly working to bring our wetlands back from the brink of extinction. By supporting and empowering the new restoration leaders, we ensure our collective success in restoring some of the earth's most fragile ecosystems.

The Gulf of Mexico Foundation's Community-based Restoration Partnership has reached a milestone by providing grants for now more than 80 different projects in coastal areas throughout the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. Restoring a total of more than 15,000 acres over the past decade, these CRP projects have improved a wide variety of habitat types, including coastal dunes, coral reefs, oyster reefs, marshes, seagrass beds, mangrove forests and artificial reefs. Funding from NOAA and EPA help make it possible for the GMF to provide more than $3 million to projects, leveraging an additional $5.5 million in non-federal support from project partners. The GMF will be offering a new round of CRP funding for 2012. Visit our website for more information on the upcoming funding opportunity.
 
Terra Viva Grants develops and manages information about grants for agriculture, energy, environment, and natural resources in the world's developing countries. 
 
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.

Tamarisk Related Grant Opportunities
The Tamarisk Coalition has developed a list of available Grant Opportunities to address tamarisk issues and riparian restoration. This list was revised as part of the Colorado River Basin Tamarisk and Russian Olive Assessment.