Managing Protected Lands
Kate GiorgiBiologist
NRCS
Healthy Plant Communities are Key
to Healthy Watersheds
Healthy, Vigorous Plant Communities…
• Improve water quality• Protect soil quality • Prevent soil erosion• Sequester carbon• Provide sustainable forage and cover
for wildlife
Plant Community Health
• Health of Individual Plants
• Diversity of Species
Why Manage?
Can’t nature take care of itself?
• No property is immune to human impacts
• Doing nothing is allowing past and current human activities to affect the land
Historical Impacts Affect Today’s Landscape
Forest 1700 Early 1800’s
Early 1900’s Forest Today
Enhancing Wildlife Habitats: A Practical Guide for Forest Landowners ... Enhancing Wildlife Habitats: A Practical Guide for Forest Landowners.
SS Hobson, JS Barclay, and SH Broderick, Northeast Regional Agricultural Engineering Service, 1993.
Different Successional Stages Benefit Different Species
Modern Activities Affect all of our Land
• Fragmentation and Loss of Open Space at the Landscape Scale
• Suppressed Disturbances– Fire, Beavers
• Diseases– Chestnut Blight, Dutch Elm
• Invasive Species– Both plants and animals
The Invaders
Invasive Species are the next biggest threat to our biodiversity
after loss of natural areas to development.
Oriental Bittersweet
Japanese Barberry
Norway Maple
Burning Bush(Winged Euonymus)
Bush Honeysuckles
Autumn Olive
Glossy Buckthorn
Black Swallowwort
Multiflora Rose
Phragmites(Common Reed)
Invasive Control• Herbicides• Mechanical (pulling, cutting, tilling)• Grazing• Burning• Persistence
Creating a Conservation/
Management Plan
• Inventory Current Conditions – Both on site and at landscape level– Specific environmental concerns
• Determine Objectives– Consider past land use– Take into account feasibility (soil, sun,
moisture, surrounding area, cost, time, etc.)
• Establish a Conservation Plan– Determine what needs to be done– Decide what is the best way (herbicide,
mechanical, burning, etc.)– Establish timeline
• Monitor Conditions Over Time– Make changes to plan as needed
Resources
http://www.dem.ri.gov/programs/bnatres/fishwild/grasslnd.htm
Forest Management Plans• Inventory present conditions
– species, quality of trees, age of stands
• Looks at long term capability of site
• Make recommendations depending on your goals– forest health, wildlife, timber, recreation
• Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP)
• Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP)
Providence Water and the Management of
Joslin Farm
Wolf Hill and the Smithfield Land Trust
Wolf Hill• 250 acres along ridge between Rt.
116, Farnum Pike and Mountaindale Rd.
• Owned by the Smithfield Land Trust • Portion of property subject to
easement granted to the Narragansett Electric Co. (National Grid)
Woonasquatucket River Watershed
The 18 and a half mile long Woonasquatucket River has a watershed area of 32,474 acres in six Rhode Island communities. The Woonasquatucket watershed includes portions of Glocester, Smithfield, North Smithfield, Johnston, North Providence and Providence.
Wolf Hill is located within the Woonasquatucket River Watershed.
Wolf Hill Conservation Plan
Inventory Current Conditions
• Forest– Red oak, white pine, A. beech, white oak – Lack of diversity in stand age and
understory• Grassland/Shrubland
– Power lines – invasives– gravel pits – erosion
• Vernal Pools• Goat’s Rue – rare plant
Determine Objectives• Increase the diversity of the forest by
managing for different successional stages
• Improve vernal pool habitat• Improve the quality of
grassland/shrubland habitat – Stabilize gravel pit area w/warm season
grasses– Remove invasive plants
Establish a Conservation Plan• Currently have a WHIP plan
– Provides funds to assist with the stabilization of gravel pit area, control of invasives, creation of clear-cut areas, monitoring
• Currently working with a forester to develop a forest management plan– Will determine location of clear-cuts
patches
Monitor Conditions Over Time
Active, science-based management of
vegetation is essential to
maintaining healthy, diverse, and resilient
ecosystems.