[APWG] [ma-eppc] Re: Fw: In search of: Good article to convince volunteers that their work is worth it?
howek at purdue.edu
howek at purdue.edu
Fri Oct 17 13:12:30 CDT 2008
I agree with Steve that you have to pick your battles, which means carefully
thinking through which species to control and why before you get started.
Ellen Jacquart, Director of Stewardship for The Nature Conservancy in Indiana,
gave a great talk at the Midwest Invasive Plant Network's annual meeting in
2007, called "Stop Wasting Your Time on Invasives-- Plan Your Way to
Success!" The PowerPoint presentation is available on our website at
http://www.mipn.org/MIPN%20weed%20management%20planning-1.ppt. This is a
great tool for anyone who is getting discouraged by the never-ending battle
against invasive plants.
Kate Howe
Midwest Invasive Plant Network Coordinator
Quoting Stephen Hiltner <stevehiltner at verizon.net>:
> I attended a talk by Andrew Revkin last week, the science writer and Dot
> Earth blogger for the NY Times. He's of the opinion that trying to deal with
> exotic invasions is not worthwhile, and says people should focus on
> maintaining ecological function rather than worrying about what species are
> there. In particular, he questions the mission of the publication Ecological
> Restoration and the notion of "restoration" in general. This was not the main
> subject of his talk, and his reference to the subject was brief, so it's
> possible his view has more nuance than came out. He also talks of human
> influence as so pervasive now that the earth is pretty much ours to make of
> as we choose, which presents a contradiction.
> I mention this not to provide a Friday afternoon downer, but to alert
> people to what someone with a large audience is preaching. As one who spends
> a lot of time removing invasive species, I don't feel discouraged that a
> writer as informed and widely listened to as Revkin fails to see the value in
> it. Any broad effort to improve the condition of people and the planet,
> whether environmental, medical, social or political, often has to content
> itself with small victories in the face of an overwhelming global challenge.
> One picks one's battles and savors one's victories, large or small.
> For me, that means taking satisfaction in having participated in the
> restoration of prairies in Durham, NC, the removal of a couple acres of
> Phragmitis in a Princeton marsh that quickly sprouted wild rice, pickerel
> weed and a host of other natives to fill the void, or the quick removal of
> the one patch of mile a minute I've encountered hereabouts. Small but locally
> significant victories are the currency of change, whether or not they show up
> on the radar of Revkin, who by necessity of his scope hovers high above earth
> looking down upon millions of acres.
> There's also the intrinsic reward that many people find in the activity
> of removing invasives, which Steve Young describes. It's a chance to be
> outside, with good company and something positive to show for a couple hours'
> work.
> In calculating our chances of restoring the landscape, it's helpful to
> consider just how much energy and persistence it took to thoroughly mess it
> up. A lot of toil and trouble was taken to plow up the prairies, cut down
> nearly every last tree on the continent, and push many native species to the
> brink of extinction or beyond. That massive impact was the cumulative result
> of countless seemingly inconsequential actions against a frontier and bounty
> that seemed endless until it was gone.
> One question is whether the American Indians went through a similar
> progression when they populated the continent, beginning with mass
> destruction of megafauna, from whose bitter lessons grew an active management
> of the landscape for diversity and mutual sustainability. Our own invasion of
> the continent, we can hope, is moving into that second phase.
>
> Steve
> Natural Resources Manager
> Friends of Princeton Open Space
> www.princetonnaturenotes.blogspot.com
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: steveyoung at aol.com
> To: Jil_Swearingen at nps.gov ; apwg at lists.plantconservation.org ;
> ma-eppc at yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 9:58 PM
> Subject: [ma-eppc] Re: [APWG] Fw: In search of: Good article to convince
> volunteers that their work is worth it?
>
>
>
> Lynette Scaffiidi passed the question along:
>
>
> Mr. Cornell mentioned that some of the students have felt that this kind of
> work is pointless or futile given the size of the problem. I have been on the
> lookout
> for some material to hand out listing the reasons invasive plant removal is
> important.
>
>
> Does anyone have any great articles or words of wisdom that are eloquently
> written that I can forward to this volunteer?
> I've thought many times about the possible futility of invasive plant
> management work, usually while I'm out there doing it, often with questioning
> feelings of "What am I doing out here and why am I doing this?!?" I make no
> claims as to the eloquence, but these are some of my reflections on why
> invasive plant removal is worthwhile.
>
> For over 10 years I have been working on invasive plant control at Long
> Branch Nature Center in Arlington, Virginia. Arlington likes to call itself
> an "urban village," and indeed it is fairly densely developed, so that its
> two nature centers are small islands of "nature" in the midst of a lot of
> urban/suburban development. I started my work when I noticed that English ivy
> seemed to be taking over most of the area around the Long Branch nature
> center building. It just didn't seem right. I had been grumbling that
> "somebody ought to do something about that" and thinking that it was the
> County's job to work on the problem, but while I grumbled, the ivy just kept
> on growing. One day it occurred to me that maybe I was a somebody who should
> be doing something about it. Fairly randomly, and without a clue about what I
> was doing, I pulled up an ivy vine. It felt kind of satisfying. I pulled
> more. I cleared it off a park bench. I could see "progress." Without a plan,
> without knowing what I was doing, I continued to work. I did some dumb
> things. I made some mistakes. I started to learn. I discovered other people
> and organizations that were working on invasive plants. I signed up as an
> official volunteer. I began to form a sort of plan. I decided that it just
> seemed right that the area near the building should be as free of English ivy
> as possible, and that there should be no ivy growing up trees and harming
> them. I cleared hundreds of square feet of ground.
>
> Over time, I learned the other invasives and began to kill them as I killed
> the English ivy. I satisfied myself, based on direct observation, that it was
> indeed possible to clear all the English ivy out of an area, even when it was
> extremely dense at the start, and to KEEP that area clear. I found that the
> native plants could regenerate in the cleared areas on their own, and
> observed them doing it. I began to feel like I was "liberating" ground so it
> could be what it should be. I liked it that visitors to the nature center now
> could see native plants, and mostly nothing but native plants, all around the
> building. Now I have a rough plan, and I keep pushing the bad stuff further
> back from the building and the main paths and access road. I found ways to
> try to do no harm to the native plants that were present among the
> invasives.
>
> Working on invasives gives me a good excuse to be working outdoors. I can
> look at acres of land now and see real progress. I have learned a lot. I have
> seen, heard, and even smelled a lot of cool things while working out there. I
> have met a lot of nice people. I have had some adventures. Sometimes, I have
> been in environments that are darn close to "jungle" because of invasive
> growth. I have faced challenges and even a little danger. Yes, I have been
> poked in the eye by a stick and stung by yellowjackets. I've had mosquito
> bites and poison ivy rashes. I am very aware that even while I am working in
> one area and making progress, the invasive plants are growing and spreading
> somewhere else. Yes, I accept that I alone can't do it all.
>
> The old environmental saying is "Think globally, act locally." And Tip
> O'Neill said "All politics is local." I may not be able to change things
> globally. I may not even be able to change things all over Arlington County.
> But I know I can change things at my local nature center, and I have, and I
> am determined to keep at it. And I am counting on it that I have a lot of
> company at other places working locally at their spots.
>
> Finally, sometimes when I am out there, I try to think about how I would
> feel if I were part of the local native wildlife, like a songbird, an eastern
> box turtle, or even an insect. If a spot is infested with non-native invasive
> plants, I wouldn't be too happy. I would have trouble finding food. The place
> wouldn't feel right. As a turtle trying to get along, I would be running into
> strange obstacles that shouldn't be there. I think about how, if that area is
> cleaned up, I would be happier. It would feel right. So I keep at it and try
> to count on it that I am doing the right thing. I look for signs that the
> wildlife is responding, and I think I see some. So I keep going.
>
> So, the bottom line is, you can make a difference in a spot and you can see
> that difference. Lots of other things won't give you that satisfaction. Go
> for it.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Steve Young
> Volunteer, Arlington County "Remove Invasive Plants" (RIP)
> Treasurer, Mid-Atlantic Exotic Pest Plants Council (MA-EPPC)
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jil_Swearingen at nps.gov
> To: apwg at lists.plantconservation.org
> Cc: lynette.scaffidi at mncppc-mc.org
> Sent: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 2:41 pm
> Subject: [APWG] Fw: In search of: Good article to convince volunteers that
> their work is worth it?
>
>
> Anyone got anything that addresses this? Please be sure to cc Lynette in
> your response.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Jil
>
>
> Jil M Swearingen
> Invasive Species Management Specialist
> National Capital Region IPM Program
> Center for Urban Ecology
> 4598 Macarthur Blvd NW
> Washington DC 20007
> 202-342-1443, ex 218
> 202-282-1031 fax
> www.nps.gov/plants/alien
> www.ma-eppc.org
> www.nps.gov/cue
>
> Please don't print this e-mail unless really needed.
> ----- Forwarded by Jil Swearingen/NCR/NPS on 10/08/2008 02:39 PM -----
>
>
>
> "Scaffidi, Lynette"
>
>
> <lynette.scaffidi at mnc To:
> <Betsy_Lyman at nps.gov>, <ma-eppc at yahoogroups.com>, <DRIPP at yahoogroups.com>
>
> ppc-mc.org> cc: (bcc: Jil
> Swearingen/NCR/NPS)
> Sent by: Subject: [ma-eppc] Good
> article to convince volunteers that their work is worth it?
> ma-eppc at yahoogroups.c
>
>
> om
>
>
>
> 10/08/2008 12:53 PM
>
>
> AST
>
>
>
>
> One of our Weed Warrior Supervisor volunteers is leading an NNI removal
> project
> for
> a school group. She got a note from one of the teachers that said:
>
>
>
>
> Mr. Cornell mentioned that some of the students have felt that this kind of
>
> work is
> pointless or futile given the size of the problem. I have been on the
> lookout
> for
> some material to hand out listing the reasons invasive plant removal is
> important.
>
> Does anyone have any great articles or words of wisdom that are eloquently
> written
> that I can forward to this volunteer?
>
>
>
>
>
> Thanks, Lynette Scaffidi
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Montgomery County Parks, Maryland
>
>
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