[MPWG] NOTES: Summary of Jan 12th PCA Meeting

[Plant Conservation]

Cross-posted to all PCA lists (these will be put on our website soon.).
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Notes from PCA Meeting (12 January 2005)
NatureServe, Rosslyn, Va.
Notes by Patrcia De Angelis (USFWS).

PCA Chair - Peggy Olwell (BLM) began meeting with introductions.
Sign-up sheet passed around.

New participants
Rita Beard (US Forest Service)
Rhonda Stewart  (US Forest Service)
Mary Paterson (US Forest Service)
Rachel Muir (USGS-BRD)

Announcements

Peggy (BLM) - Teleconferencing the PCA Meeting: One participant on phone
today (Bailey).  Teleconference will be offered to Federal Members at the
next meeting.

Larry Morse (NatureServe):
Botanical Society of America (BSA) - Lewis Ziska (Feb. 1, 2005, National
Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, 7pm) -
open to all

Ellen Rubin (EPA):
International Phytotechnologies Conference (April 20-22, 2005,
Atlanta, Georgia) - open to everyone - invites PCA involvement in
conference planning** - contact Ellen Rubin (rubin.ellen at epa.gov,
703-603-0141)

Gary Krupnik (Botany Dept, Smithsonian Institution):
The Future of Floras - New Frameworks, New Technologies, New Uses (April
15-16, 2005, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington DC) - registration begins December 6, 2004 - see
http://persoon.si.edu/sbs/

Pam Bailey (US Army Corps):
Biogeography of Wetlands (March 20-23, 2005, Cook Conference Ctr. & H otel
at LSU) http://conference.ifas.ufl.edu/wetlands/

Ev Byington (USDA ARS) Draft report from native legume workshop held in
Dec. 2004 will be available soon.  A 5-year plan for rangeland - $200
million.  Ev mentioned that it lacks information on medicinal plants.
Input welcome; will send to PCA.

Bob Eschemann (NRCS) - Planning a meeting with ASTA (American Seed Trade
Association) and Fed partners; March 15-17; USDA Cafeteria; about 30
people

Rita Beard (FS) - FS is trying to get directives out on native plant
policy to give direction to implement laws and regulations, incl. exec
orders.  Have had strict policies for trees and seeds - none for native
plant materials.  She'll make it available to PCA when ready.

Carol Spurrier (BLM) - Pollinating partners stamp - Will send out on
listserve to support a request to Postal Service for a special stamp for
pollinators

Upcoming speaker schedule:
GCA - Moved to November
Lewis Gorman -July - FWS T&E Liason with DOD
Donna House - May/July - National Museum of the Native American Indian
NAPPC - Suggestion to ask NAPPC to make a presentation; Patricia will send
Kim Winter's contact info to Peggy

Pam Bailey (US Army Corp) - First National Conference of Ecosystem
Restoration (NCER) - Held in Orlando, FL. - Dec. 6
Hosted by US Army Corps, USGS, Univ of Florida, Society for Ecological
Restoration, David Packard Foundation, et al.  More than 1000 attendees.
Excellent!  There were five tracks (such as planning projects, restoration
projects).  Some presentations from people doing restoration with natives
- esp. in Everglades.  Every attendee got a book of abstracts (see
conference link at: http://conference.ifas.ufl.edu/ecosystem/).  List of
participants will also be available from the website.
Next conference: 2007 - Mississippi Valley - You can get on the list to
get info for the next mtg.

Update on Committee Activities

-Alien Plant Working Group (Olivia Kwong -SER - for Jil Swearingen - NPS)

 - "Least Wanted" Calendar for 2005 available online:
www.nps.gov/plants/alien
 - Mary Paterson (USDA-FS) -Outreach idea to package outreach materials
for target species by region.
 - Peggy Olwell - Exotic Pest Plant Councils (EPPC) are in every state
(<invasivespecies.org>).  Peggy has bookmarks that have the url printed on
them.  Will send some to Mary.
 - FS nonnative invasive plants of southern forests has timeframes and
treatment options - available from FS at no cost
 - Tim Toplisek (US Army Corps) - outreach material on CDs - Invasive
Plants of Asian Origin - will bring copies in for us to hand out
 - Discussion of potential outreach PCA could do:
    - Weather channel (i.e. invasives that are "in bloom")
    - Woman's Day Magazine - they often suggest nonnative garden species;
not that they are invasive but might be nice to turn them on to them
natives

-Medicinal Plant Working Group (Patricia De Angelis - USFWS)

 - Conservation Committee - Preparing the 2005 proposal to partner with
GCA again this year on several field projects;  GCA serves as the primary
volunteer base for several field projects to inventory and monitor
medicinal plants.  Will meet with GCA in February when they come to DC for
their annual Legislative Meeting, when they come to speak to different
agencies and their reps on the Hill, etc.
 - Side discussion about GCA and partnering opportunities

    - P. Olwell -GCA was instrumental in 80s-90s to get more botanists on
board
    - E. Byington - USDA has traditionally focused on beans pigs and
corns; -6 yrs ago hardly any research in floral, medicinals - NTFPs are
now of interest
    - P. Olwell will give GCA contact info to Byington, Paterson, Toplisek
and FS.
    - M. Paterson - zoning is weakest link; developers come in and don't
replant with Natl Assn of Counties - need conservation tools - maps of
native vegetation for a county can be overlaid with zoning regulations -
need to get them involved
    - P. Bailey - Native Plant Rescues - (Pam) initiated plant rescue with
St. DNR and two school systems in WV; many ways to involve multiple
stakeholders in native projects
    - Suggestion: Connect with Extension Service course - master gardeners
always looking for projects
 - Industrial Leadership for the Preservation of Medicinal and Aromatic
Plants (Symposium III) - May be held in Utah, with Utah Natural Products
Alliance as hosts; obtained a USFWS assistant for planning this year.
    - FS mentioned that Rod Sallee is the lead for all gathering of
Non-timber Forest Products on National Forests; new direction coming out
in next few months - regulations, sale; may be a good idea to have Rod
Sallee as speaker this year.  (Rod was speaker last year but will
investigate the possibilities).

-Native Plant Materials Development (Carol Spurrier - BLM)

 - November - Native Plant Mountain Summit - Great Basin Area - Boise
    - Germplasm workshop to discuss seed transfer zones; Carol working
with FS to develop a pilot project "focal point seed transfer zones" - 7
grasses and 1 forb - tie in with Seeds of Success and have BLM collecting
team working with FS; genetic work will be conducted at Corvallis and
Pendleton
 - February - Using Native Plant Materials to meet Management Objectives -
Salt Lake City
    - Worked with FS, ARS, and invasives person to develop course - pilot
session will have many agency reps in attendance in order to get feedback
- FS, FWS, BLM - Salt Lake City - will become regular part of BLM
curriculum and be offered every year
 - USDA-CSREES - (Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension
Service)
    - Interested in putting on meeting in 2006 to educate growers of
native plant materials - Nebraska or Wyoming; workshop for growers to
discuss what could grow in what forest; grasses and 1 sedge ; the audience
is previous turf growers who are interested in moving into another market
 - Seeds of Success website - new format will soon be on-line at
www.nps.gov/plants
 - BLM is renewing agreement with Royal botanic Gardens Kew (London) on
Millennium Seed Bank project - collected about 1000 seeds last year;
agreement expires in May 2005; planning a celebration at US Botanic
Garden;
 - February - Society for Range Management Meeting - Ft. Worth - Great
Basin Restoration
 - People and native forbs selection; project will have workshop to
discuss what's going out; Nancy Shaw (FS) coordinating this.
 - P. Olwell - BLM has been the agency responsible for getting the native
plant money in for NPMD; Peggy needs to go discuss things with fire folks
in Interior; other agency folks interested in participating in that
discussion
 - FS - Healthy Forests Initiative - has requirements for restoration -
titles 4 and 6 - may be a place to get these groups involved with PCA and
Native Plants Material Development program.

-National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (Olivia Kwong for NFWF)

 - Next Call for proposals will be in July.  ((Follow-up - NFWF changed
their schedule to better fit field seasons- proposal cycles are now Feb.
15 and Aug. 15)).

-Public Outreach (Not in attendance)

-Restoration Working Group (Greg Eckert - NPS)

 - Handed out a letter that he sent to members for input on strategy and
directions.
 - Planning a conference call to reactivate the group.  Peggy will set up
a call for 20 lines

-PCA MOU

 - Six agencies have signed on again.  USGS (R. Muir) needs briefing book.

North American Botanic Garden Strategy for Plant Conservation
	-Dan Shepherd (Botanic Gardens Conservation International (US))

BGCI - a non-profit based in London focusing on conservation and advocacy
issues.  Includes 118 countries; 500 institutions; regional and
international program offices in 11 countries - the US office is at
Brooklyn Botanic Garden

BGCI is involved in variety of projects, such as legislative to grants for
restoration.  In US, the focus is primarily on education work.

International Agenda for Botanic Gardens in Conservation- 1998 - resulted
in the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) - with 16 global
targets to create strategic framework to curb threats to plant
biodiversity around the world
-many countries have decided to have a response to the GSPC - to discuss
how they will integrate the GSPC targets in their regions
-in 2003, Center for Plant Conservation (CPC), American Association of
Botanic Gardens and Arboreta (AABGA), and Canadian Botanical Conservation
Network (CBCN) signed MOU to work on partnership for conservation within
botanic gardens
-2004 roundtable - decided to put together botanic garden-specific
response to GSPC
-a draft document: North American Botanic Garden Strategy for Plant
Conservation - was passed out - input welcome - the final document to be
launched in June at AABGA conference in Chicago at Chicago Botanic Garden.

Issues in North American Botanic Garden Strategy for Plant Conservation
being discussed include:  Species recovery; discussing creating a list of
employees and areas of expertise; list of experts within the garden
network.

Target 14 in the GSPC - BGCI is sole consulting organization for
promoting educational awareness about plant diversity; we would like
botanic gardens across US to help; new education officer just hired -
building two programs - one for adult gardeners; children ages 9-12;
teachers ask for info; working with National Gardeners Association; PCA
and NFWF funded a teachers' guide for Washington State, which was produced
by Cascades Institute; ethnobotany curriculum

Loss of botany programs, herbaria, botanic gardens - many disciplines are
moving away from generalists with no broad scale information;

ESA- crisis in taxonomic capabilities - EO Wilson - Univ of Chicago; no
single taxonomy course for freshman

Target 8 in the GSPC - what is in ex situ collections; current database
has 91K taxa; accessions; encouraging gardens to get involved in that.

R. Muir (USGS) - Muir coordinates the movement of material from ex situ
environments back to the wild; has several suggestions for this.

2006 - no child left behind - science kicks in - new national academic
standards may not mention emphasis to teach native species; make sure
there's something on native species.; empower - go to education
subcommittees on that,

P. Olwell: Where's the money to support the North American Botanic Garden
Strategy for Plant Conservation?  Will BGCI get more involved in asking
for the funds?
	See Section E of NASPC Building capacity for Conservation of Plant
Diversity

P. Olwell: PCA also has a nexus with Mexico and Canada because PCA serves
as the IUCN North American Plant Specialist Group (NAPSG).Have the other
countries within NA done a botanic garden strategy for plant conservation?

	Mexico already has action plan - no strategy
	US - has a strategy (this draft) but needs to develop an action
        plan
	Canada has neither but fewer gardens and all are involved

	PCA would be happy to work with both Mexico and Canada to
        facilitate the development of NASPC across our borders as needed.