Join us and help restore native plant communities by controlling non-native invasive plants at Richmond Hill Park. This is the City of Asheville’s only forested park and is home to many special native plant and animal species!
We’ll provide all gloves, equipment and instruction needed. Please bring snacks, water, rain jacket and wear long pants, long sleeve shirt and closed toe shoes (no open shoes or sandals allowed for safety).
Dates:
May 9
June 13
July 11
August 8
September 12
October 10
November 14 (Canceled)
December 12
Rain Dates: 2nd Sundays
Time: 9 a.m.-1 p.m.
Cost: Free; Thank you for you help!
Learn from MountainTrue’s Public Lands Biologist Josh Kelly about fire ecology in the Blue Ridge Mountains!
When: Saturday, May 2 – 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Singcat Ridge; to carpool from Asheville, meet at the Westgate Shopping Center at 8:45 a.m. Participants may meet us instead in the parking area at the intersection of N.C. Hwy 80 and the Blue Ridge Parkway at 10 a.m.
What to expect: This all-day outdoor seminar will include a moderate to difficult hike with stops throughout during which we will discuss fire effects on vegetation, wildlife responses to fire, fire ignition types, fuel, and behavior.
What to bring: Participants should wear sturdy hiking and bring rain gear, lunch, and water.
FREE! All are welcome!
In April, many invasive plants are beginning to bloom and people will more easily be able to identify and take steps to control invasive plants. In addition, many people will be choosing landscaping plants for their yards.
North Carolina Invasive Plant Council hosts Invasives Species Awareness Week in April with the aim of reaching a greater number of people and more effectively raise awareness of invasive plants and animals in our state during the time of year when people are spending more time outside.
Since 2002, MountainTrue has addressed the challenge of non-native invasive plants in the mountain counties of North Carolina. Introduced both accidentally and intentionally (for erosion control, livestock forage, and landscaping), these invasive species escaped from developed communities and have become naturalized in the wild. Without the predators and competitors these plants have evolved with, they are given the opportunity to flourish, usually at the expense of our native plant communities.
Many non-native invasive plants have faster growth rates and higher seed yields than native plants, and the competition for soil resources, light, and area is intense. Also, a number of these species are highly efficient in transporting their seeds and expanding their root systems.It’s important to identify and manage heavy invasions to protect the great biodiversity we enjoy in Western North Carolina.
The goal of Invasive Species Awareness Week is to educate the public about the problems caused by invasive plant species. To get involved and learn more you can:
— Choose native or non-invasive plants for your yard and garden.
— Learn more about invasive plants and how to identify them.
— Get involved by attending an educational workshop in your area.
— Attend a weed pulling workday.
A great online resource for the identification of non-native invasive plants in the southeast is provided by the U.S. Forest Service and can be found by clicking here.
Controlling, and ultimately eliminating, non-native invasive plants from a site is a multi-phase process of monitoring and management. All of these project sites will need to be revisited periodically to ensure that invasions do not become reestablished.
Every bit of help we get from volunteers makes a dent in the advancing wall of non-native invasive plants that threatens our native local diversity.
Click here to volunteer with MountainTrue today!
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Thanks to some very generous patrons, we have been given a $10,000 matching grant for our esteemed Invasive Species Program. This means your contribution will be matched dollar for dollar for a limited time. This is an amazing opportunity to DOUBLE YOUR DONATION so please take a moment and help us achieve this goal by contributing today! Donate HERE!
Click HERE to download our new, wallet-sized Do Not Buy Guide to help stop the spread of invasive species at the source! This guide tells you which WNC invasive plants to avoid purchasing and the native alternatives you can use instead. Just print it out, fold it up and keep it with you when you go to your local nursery to get your fall and spring plantings!
12/13/2014: “WNC’s National Forests at crossroads” — Editorial by Public Lands Field Biologist Josh Kelly in the Asheville Citizen-Times. (May require login).
Press Release from the Southern Environmental Law Center
For Release: Nov. 12, 2014
Contact: Kathleen Sullivan, SELC, 919-945-7106 or ksullivan@selcnc.org
Forest Service proposes massive logging program in an area bigger than the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.—In what conservation groups flag as a dramatic shift, the U.S. Forest Service is proposing industrial-scale logging in the vast majority of the Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest in western North Carolina – about 700,000 acres, or an area bigger than the Great Smoky Mountain National Park – instead of protecting popular backcountry recreation destinations and conserving the Blue Ridge landscapes treasured by residents and tourists from across the United States.
“Under the law and for everyone who enjoys America’s forests, the Forest Service’s first priority should be fixing the mistakes of the past – restoring the parts of the forest already damaged by prior logging,” said DJ Gerken, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “But the misguided logging plan proposed by the agency will repeat those old mistakes, causing more damage and putting the healthiest forests we have left on the chopping block. The people who use and love these forests won’t stand for cutting them down.”
The Forest’s new proposal would inevitably increase logging over the levels of recent years, though the precise amount has not been disclosed. “This increase would come from ramping up logging all over the forest, including backcountry areas like the South Mills River area, home to the popular Black Mountain Trail,” said Hugh Irwin, conservation planner for The Wilderness Society. According to Forest Service documents, such areas would be managed for “timber production,” which it interprets as “the purposeful growing and harvesting of crops of trees to be cut into logs.”
This industrial-style logging would also require cutting new roads for trucks and equipment into sensitive, unspoiled backcountry areas. “Not only is that destructive and disruptive, it’s also fiscally irresponsible,” added Irwin. “The agency shouldn’t be expanding its road system when it can’t even afford to maintain the roads it already has.” Agency reports confirm that the Forest has less than 13 percent of the funds needed to maintain its existing roads, leading to safety and water quality problems. Several popular roads remain closed due to unrepaired washouts.
“This proposal is absolutely the wrong direction for the forest,” said Ben Prater, director of conservation for Wild South. “Times have changed, and our mountain economy doesn’t depend just on logging anymore. We should be capitalizing on our wonderful Blue Ridge forests, not cutting them down. Treating practically the entire Pisgah-Nantahala as a ‘crop’ is simply irresponsible.”
The Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest has become a tourism and recreation destination, and revenue generated by visitors is a major driver of the western North Carolina economy. The National Forests of North Carolina are the third most visited national forest in the country. Industrial logging not only damages scenery and natural features, which are the key draw for half of those visits, but also requires popular areas to be closed to the public for months at a time while trees are being cut. “They’re our public lands,” says Prater. “Where is the balance?”
Josh Kelly, public lands biologist for the Western North Carolina Alliance, calls the proposal a “missed opportunity.” According to Kelly, “the Forest Service could sell more timber, meet game wildlife goals for hunters, and fulfill its ecological responsibilities by focusing its limited budget on restoring degraded areas with existing road access. We have a historic opportunity to care for this forest like it deserves – a real win-win solution – but if the Plan is mired in conflict, none of that work will get done.”
Public participation is important to the planning process underway, in which the U.S. Forest Service will decide how to manage the Pisgah and National Forests for the next 15 years.
The public can also comment by email at NCplanrevision@fs.fed.us.
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The Southern Environmental Law Center is a regional nonprofit using the power of the law to protect the health and environment of the Southeast (Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama). Founded in 1986, SELC’s team of more than 60 legal and policy experts represent more than 100 partner groups on issues of climate change and energy, air and water quality, forests, the coast and wetlands, transportation, and land use.
www.SouthernEnvironment.org
A black bear is caught on a candid camera in the Grandfather District of Pisgah National Forest this past summer.
Over the summer, the U.S. Forest Service in the Grandfather District of Pisgah National Forest deployed 50 motion-triggered trail cameras in the forest to determine how animals use a prescribed burn area compared to a non-burned area.
The composition and function of plant communities has been changed, inadvertently, from fire suppression. This biological shift also affects animals’ foraging strategies, and the USFS is interested in quantifying how animal communities are changed in response to the lack of fire.
WHAT: We many still images as data and we need volunteers to help us look through and count the animals that the cameras photographed in the forests.
WHEN: Between now and Nov. 1. The USFS must present phase one of the results in mid-November. They want to know which species were in which locations and how many times they were photographed. After Nov. 1, there is opportunity to continue working with the data using more refined biostats analysis to get an even better sense of how animals perceive habitat.
WHERE: 29 N. Market St., Suite 610 (WNCA’s office). Volunteers will look over the data sheets and collect some memory cards. Volunteers can work with our Forest Keepers Coordinator Alexandra Guest, or on their own, depending on schedule flexibility and their confidence level in managing data.
WHO: Anyone, particularly those interested in wildlife ecology and data management. This is a great resume builder for students, lifelong learners, etc. Volunteer collaborators’ names will be listed with the project when it’s presented by the USFS.
ITEMS NEEDED: Volunteers need a computer with photo software so that they can pull images off of an SD card. Nothing fancy (We use iPhoto). Also required: Excel and some proficiency using it.
Interested volunteers should contact WNCA Forest Keepers Coordinator Alex Guest at Alexandra@WNCA.org
[Photo: Lisa Jennings, program coordinator of the Grandfather Restoration Project, assists in conducting a prescribed burn on the Grandfather Ranger District. (photo courtesy Adam Warwick, The Nature Conservancy)]
