| Association of Natural Resource Extension Professionals |
Quarterly Member Newsletter Summer 2023 |
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In this issue
- Letter from the President
- Prescribed Fire workshop and upcoming meeting
- New center to promote agricultural conservation in Pennsylvania
- New Jersey puts a spotlight on invasive species
- UC ANR Forest Research and Outreach Compiles Forestry Voices in Story Map Project
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Climate-Ready Woodlands: Rewilding Your Backyard Woods
- Letter from the Editor
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Letter from the President
Hello fellow ANREP members! Hope your summer has gone well! We have a lot going on at ANREP!
This summer the Executive Committee approved updates to the ANREP Policies and Procedures manual, including the inclusion of the new DEI policies formulated by the ANREP DEI Committee. These updates can be viewed on the ANREP member portal at ANREP.org. Thanks goes to Past President, Beth Clawson; Executive Secretary, Dean Solomon; and the DEI Committee for drafting these updates.
Another professional development on-line opportunity is being provided by the ANREP DEI Committee from October to December. Several modules are being offered on Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) training. Space is limited, so if you’re interested you are encouraged to register soon. Please visit the ANREP member portal for details and how to register.
In line with these new professional development opportunities, ANREP is offering Professional Development Scholarships of up to $750 each. Contact Chad Cook, the ANREP Scholarship Committee Chair for more details and how to apply.
The ANREP Communications Committee is looking for additional members. Please contact Sarah Havens (havenss@missouri.edu) or Dean Solomon (anrep@anrep.org) to sign up. The Communications Committee is working to implement our Strategic Plan goals for member networking and initiatives as well as raising the awareness of natural resource Extension professionals among other natural resource professions and the public at large.
ANREP needs you and your ideas and enthusiasm to grow as an organization and better serve its members. You are encouraged to join any of our ANREP Committees where the work of ANREP gets done. Please visit the ANREP member portal to learn about our various committees and how to join.
Finally, be sure to mark your calendars for the 2024 ANREP Conference in Hershey, PA, May 6-8. Hope to see you there! Thank you for supporting your professional society, and wishing you a great fall season 2023! Bill Warren ANREP President |
Prescribed Fire Hands-on Workshop held in Raleigh, NC and upcoming NEWFI meeting
The National Extension Wildland Fire Initiative (NEWFI), in conjunction with NC State Extension Forestry, the Southern Fire Exchange, and the NC Sandhills Prescribed Burn Association (PBA), hosted a hands-on workshop to share effective activities for communicating topics of prescribed fire and fire science on June 7-9 in Raleigh, NC. We were joined by twenty Extension and outreach professionals from North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Oregon, and California. The agenda was filled with engaging activities including lively discussions, a mini fire festival, and the highlight of the event: a community-minded conversation and learn-and-burn with the NC Sandhills PBA. Participants went home with toolboxes of new fire outreach resources, renewed spark for supporting prescribed fire, and a stronger network of similarly-inspired folks. Our next in-person NEWFI Meeting will be during the Association of Fire Ecology Congress this December, and is open to anyone to join.
Submitted by Jennifer Fawcett
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New center to promote agricultural conservation in Pennsylvania
Penn State Extension launched a new Center this summer to provide education and technical assistance for agricultural conservation practices across the state. New funding was passed by the state legislature to increase the number of Ag BMPs in the state and help protect the state’s water and soil resources. Along with that funding was support for this new center that will work in partnership with NRCS and state agencies already working in this important field. You can read more about the center here: https://www.psu.edu/news/agricultural-sciences/story/new-center-promote-agricultural-conservation-pennsylvania/
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New Jersey puts a spotlight on invasive species
Rutgers Cooperative Extension has developed 2 new resources for the public to learn about invasive plant species. The first is a new fact sheet titled “Invasive Species and Native Alternatives for Landscapes”. The second is a new online series called “Invasive Species of the Month”.
The fact sheet provides an overview of why invasive plants are a problem in New Jersey, how they spread, and what everyone can do to manage them in our landscapes. The focus is on invasive plants common in landscaping and gardening. Tables are included listing invasive plant species and suggested native alternatives.
The Invasive Species of the Month series takes a deeper dive into individual species, how to identify them, and methods of control for land managers and the public. Species are chosen based on time of the year when control is most effective, or when they are most easily identified in the landscape. For example, Microstegium vimineum (Stiltgrass) was chosen for the August spotlight as late August/ early September is when control is most effective in the New Jersey. Viburum dilatatum (Linden viburnum) was chosen for September as the large, red clusters of fruit in the fall persist into December making it easier to identify. The series is distributed state-wide to Extension staff, volunteers, natural resource managers, and the public.
New legislation has been proposed in New Jersey that would prohibit the “purchase, sale, distribution, import, export, or propagation of certain invasive species without permit from Department of Agriculture or Department of Environmental Protection and establishes NJ Invasive Species Council.” The legislation was passed by the Assembly in the spring, 2023 and the Senate is expected to vote on it in November.
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UC ANR Forest Research and Outreach Compiles Forestry Voices in Story Map Project
Visit the UC ANR Forest Stewardship Story Map HERE.
For the past four years, Kim Ingram, Forest Stewardship Education coordinator, has been listening closely to the private forest landowners who participate in her Forest Stewardship Workshop series. During the workshops, landowners share their experiences clearing thickets of vegetation, replanting post-wildfire and tackling invasive species, and their concerns of who will take care of their forest when they’re gone. To help alleviate some of their concerns, Ingram turns to natural resource professionals at CAL FIRE, local Resource Conservation Districts, and the U.S Forest Service who can share knowledge and resources with participants. In August of this year, the Forest Stewardship team developed a story map that aims to provide landowners with a platform they can use to share their experiences and ways that they have been empowered to manage their land.
“It’s not uncommon for small forest landowners to feel overwhelmed with their forest management responsibilities and uncertain over what steps to take first,” said Ingram. “Through the Forest Stewardship Workshops and this story map project, we hope to show that there is an entire community of forest landowners in the same situation, learning from each other and moving forward towards their management goals. The Forest Stewardship Story Map team used ArcGIS StoryMaps to design the project, with 15 participants providing interviews and visual content. StoryMaps provides a user-friendly interface where website visitors can either click on a county to view specific interviews or scroll to view the stories. The forestry team plans to interview landowners and natural resource professionals in every forested county in California so private forest landowners have a local contact or can become inspired by a project in their area.
Theresa Ciafardoni, a forest landowner in Nevada County, said that the UC ANR Forest Stewardship Workshop helped her manage post-fire restoration and long-term land use planning.
“It opened up so many options and possibilities,” said Ciafardoni. “All the individuals who presented in the Forest Stewardship Workshop were open to phone calls for specific questions and provided invaluable technical assistance.”
Involving landowners and forestry professionals into this project was an early decision made by Ingram, who believed it was important that the map held appeal beyond hosting stories. Now, the project functions as a networking tool for landowners seeking professional assistance, too.
Past Forest Stewardship Workshop presenters shared their contact information and the motivations behind their forest management work so landowners could find assistance in their area. The professionals currently hosted on the map include Resource Conservation District managers, UC ANR forestry advisors and private contractors.
“The most motivated landowners are invested not only economically, but their hearts are into it,” said Ryan Tompkins, UCCE forestry advisor for Plumas, Sierras and Lassen Counties. “The natural world is full of uncertainty, but they’re committed to continuing education and learning about how to be a good land steward. This takes a certain level of humility recognizing that our tenure as a steward on the land is a very short period of a forest’s lifetime.” Looking ahead, the team envisions the map as a working document that will eventually include interviews with indigenous tribal members who focus on traditional ecological knowledge projects, and a feature that will filter stories by topic (e.g. reforestation or prescribed burning). Recent additions include interviews and information from the UC ANR Post-Fire Forest Resilience Program. “This isn’t a project that could be completed by one person,” explained Grace Dean, Forest Stewardship communications specialist. “The same way that Kim and other presenters explain forest management as a collaborative process holds true for this project.”
The Forest Stewardship Workshop series gives participants, no matter their level of expertise, the ability to build upon their knowledge and experiences. In the same vein, this story map provides the Forest Stewardship team a solid base of real stories to add on to over time. The hope is that it will grow into a multifaceted tool reaching new forest landowners, eventually enveloping their stories within the small forest landowner community.
Image Caption: Napa County Forest Stewardship Workshop participants gather during the series’ in-person field day. Photo credit: Kim Ingram |
Climate-Ready Woodlands: Rewilding Your Backyard Woods
Engaging Minnesota woodland stewards to promote climate-resilient, charismatic microfauna-friendly forests
By Anna Stockstad (stock523@umn.edu), Emily Dombeck (edombeck@umn.edu), and Angela Gupta (agupta@umn.edu), University of Minnesota Extension Forestry
Earlier this summer, we introduced readers of this newsletter to the Rewilding Your Backyard Woods project, a new resource created by UMN Extension Forestry. The centerpiece of the project is a series of region-specific recommendation lists of climate-resilient, wildlife-friendly trees and plants. These lists aim to promote resilient forest ecosystems through diversification of the forest canopy, support for charismatic microfauna like insect pollinators and bats, and awareness of the importance of understory plants in maintaining ecosystem functioning.
Our initial analysis was limited to the trees and plants present in a few representative native plant communities (NPC) from each region. After completing the first iteration of lists and releasing them via the My Minnesota Woods blog, we were able to expand our analysis to include trees from all forested NPCs in each ecoregion.
This change in scope also prompted us to consider a broader audience. At first we had intended these lists for stewards of backyard woods (woodlands of less than 20 acres), but we quickly realized our lists are just as applicable to woods of greater than 20 acres. To avoid confusing our audiences we have rebranded the backyard woods project as Climate-Ready Woodlands.
The most surprising - and saddening - discovery of this process is that many of the “iconic” Minnesota species, like red pine and quaking aspen of northern Minnesota, were not predicted to be climate resilient and thus were not included on these lists. Instead, many northern and central hardwood species were shown to be climate resilient across the ecoregions. This suggests that in the long-term, Minnesota’s forests will shift towards being dominated by more hardwood species as the southern border of the boreal forest moves northward. As foresters, this means that we will also have to shift our silvicultural practices as our forests change.
The inclusion of many species that are not native to the region will likely cause some surprise or initial pushback from woodland stewards due to the perceived risks. It is therefore our job as educators to help people fully understand their management options for climate adaptation, the risks involved, and how those management actions and planting decisions will impact the forest.
We also highly recommend that all woodland stewards, especially those with larger acreages, work with a natural resource professional when deciding which species to plant. This is especially crucial for landowners considering any of the species showing migration potential that we’ve included on our lists. It is just as important to include natural resource professionals in our outreach around forest management approaches so they are prepared to answer landowners’ questions.
So what’s next? We’re expanding our scope once more to include the understory plants for all NPCs in each region, not just a select few. We’re also working towards delivering this content across the state on a regional basis and thinking about long-term silvicultural implications of these changes in species composition across our landscape. If you’re interested in following this project as it expands, sign-up for the My Minnesota Woods newsletter for monthly updates.
We offer a special thanks to fellow project collaborator Emily Dombeck for all of her great work. |
Letter from the Editor
Hello! This is my first newsletter as the editor. I do apologize for not sending reminders about submissions for this edition of the newsletter. I will start to have reminders sent ahead of submission deadlines. Feel free to send submissions to my email
Don't forget: any member may submit an article. Please submit articles that are 600 words or less, in .doc or .docx format. For your articles, photos are greatly appreciated. Do not embed them in the article. Rather, have a place holder (eg: fig.1), then attach the photo separately. Please include a caption and proper credit. The editor retains the right to edit the article. This is usually very minor, such as typos or word omissions. The submission deadlines will be: May 1, Aug. 1, Nov. 1, and Feb. 1. I will send reminders. Sincerely, Sarah Havens University of Missouri Cooperative Extension havenss@missouri.edu |
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