ANREP Fall 2011 Newsletter

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Fall 2011 Featured Region: Western

ANREP 2012 ConferenceUpdate

The ANREP 2012 Conference arrangements

are progressing! We received over 160abstracts for presentations and posters, ourdiligent crew of volunteer reviewers hascompleted their task, and all submittersshould soon be hearing from the committee.

It looks to be a great program! Stay tunedfor updates on the specific concurrent

session tracks.

Our opening plenary speaker will be Dr.

Katherine Ledford, Director of the Centerfor Appalachian Studies at Appalachian StateUniversity. Dr. Ledford is an author andscholar in Appalachian culture and socialhistory. Her opening talk will help set a

sense of place as we come together in themagnificent Southern Appalachians, theworlds oldest mountains.

Volunteer Opportunities: There will begracious plenty opportunities for you tovolunteer and show your ANREP spirit byhelping us deliver the best ANREPconference yet! We will need poster judges,session moderators, room monitors, bus

captains, silent auction overseers, andsurely more things we have not yet thoughtof! After the first of the year, we will sendan announcement on the ANREP listserv witha weblink where you can sign up to

volunteer.

Networking Events: Mixed in with all thelearning and scholarly activity will be ampleopportunities for networking informally with

your colleagues we have planned twoevening socials and a genuine North Carolinapig pickin! For those of you unfamiliar withthis local culinary tradition, you are in for asucculent delight! Its a finger lickin good

feast of pig (cooked all day over thecharcoal pit), hush puppies, coleslaw, bakedbeans, banana pudding, sweet tea; and, ofcourse, adult beverages for those of legalage. (Dont worry vegetarians; well have

something for you too!)

Preconference Tour: Have you checked outthe awesome preconference study tour thatweve put together? Go to

www.anrep.org/conferences/2012/preconference-tour for all the details, but as a

teaser: it includes a Ranger-guided tour ofGreat Smoky Mountains National Park, a visitto the Cherokee Reservation, a hike in Joyce

Kilmer Wilderness (some say the onlyremaining old growth forest east of theMississippi), rafting on the Nantahala River,and a relaxing drive with many stops alongthe incredibly scenic Blue Ridge Parkway.

Sign up now, space is limited!

Registration is open! Go towww.anrep.org/conferences/2012/registration .

Early bird registration ends January 31.

Questions? Contact Susan Moore,Conference Co-chair [email protected]

Focus on theWestern Region

Education to Action

Land Stewards is a new inter-disciplinaryExtension program focusing on stewardship

of small acreage properties in the Wildland-Urban interface. The pilot Land Stewardstraining was delivered in Jackson County,


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southwest Oregon, in fall 2009, with 30landowner participants. Since then, twoadditional Land Stewards cadres have been

trained; reaching an additional 50 owners,most of whom were relatively new to thearea or lacked experience in one or more

facets of land stewardship.

Small parcels are a defining feature of theWildland-Urban Interface (WUI), the zone ofland between urban centers and wildlands.In Jackson and Josephine Counties insouthwest Oregon, there are tens of

thousands of these tracts, many of which arewooded. The ways these parcels aremanaged has major implications for fire risk,air quality, water use, the spread of invasivespecies, forest health, and wildlife habitat.

However, existing Extension programsseldom directly target this huge audience ina holistic way that is, one thatencompasses a full range of land

management issues.

The 12-week, 35-hour Land Stewardscurriculum consists of eleven modulescovering stewardship, ecology, managementplanning, water, weeds, tree and woods

care, wildlife, wildfire, waste reduction,and pasture management. The initial

approach featured a blend of classroominstruction and field trips. Instructors

included local resource managementprofessionals, and local landowners hostedfield trips. This year, the program wasmodified to make it largely field-based,using primarily experienced landowners as

peer-to-peer instructors, but also includedresource professionals. Moving to a daytimeschedule to accommodate the field-basedsessions has resulted in slightly lower

attendance, but has significantly improved

participant learning.

Each Land Steward is required to completean action plan for his or her property, and toget follow-up technical assistance from the

local Soil & Water Conservation District(SWCD), or another agency, to implementthe plan. The action plan is not intended tobe a full-blown management plan, but

rather helps the Steward develop a strategyto address at least one major resourceconcern or objective. Our partnership with

the SWCD, which helps fund the LandSteward program, has ensured that theprogram directly links educational and

technical assistance, resulting in on-the-ground stewardship activities ranging frominvasive weed eradication to thinningoverstocked forests.

Land Stewards range management field trip

Land Stewards are also required to provideat least 20 hours of volunteer service for

Extension or partner organizations. Amongthe volunteer service projects undertakento-date include: serving on fire preventioneducation teams, recycling projects,developing a forage demonstration plot forOSU's small farm program, creating a fire-

resistant plant demonstration garden, andhosting a Living on the Land conference.Volunteer activities have greatly increasedthe horsepower of the program, and have

reached many other small acreage owners inthe community.

Feedback from participants has been largelyvery positive, with the majority saying thecourse has increased their knowledge,

confidence, and ability to be good stewardsof their land. Should be almost arequirement for those buying rural acreageand should be a must for all owners in the

urban interface are typical of the


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comments received. For some, however,certain topics were not relevant to theirindividual situations, or conversely, were

not covered in enough depth.

Initial funding for the program came from a

federal grant, administered through theOregon Department of Forestry.

Based on the success of the pilot,funding was subsequentlyobtained from the local SWCDand the state forestry agency; newpartnerships to sustain and expand

the program are being pursued.

Submitted by Max BennettForestry/Natural Resources AgentOregon State University

[email protected]

4-H Stream Teams

In 2010, youth in Pennsylvanias Dauphin,Lebanon, and Lancaster Counties were

invited to be part of a unique opportunity:a chance to learn, hands-on, about thewater in their own community and how theirdaily lives impact that water. This is themission of the 4-H Stream Teams program,

currently in its second year within the

Conewago Creek Watershed and surroundingcommunities. This small, 53 square milewatershed is the focus of much attention, as

partners from a wide-variety of governmentagencies, universities, and non-governmentorganizations come together to see what afully collaborative effort (in this case theConewago Creek Collaborative Conservation

Initiative) can do to restore a smallwatershed and ultimately improve thequality of water entering the ChesapeakeBay. Thanks to the efforts of Penn State

Extension Educators and to funding from aUSDA-NIFA Integrated Water Quality ProgramGrant, youth are included in thiscollaborative effort.

The three major components of the 4-H

Stream Team concept are:

1) provide a hands-on water-educationcurriculum that teaches youth aboutwater conservation, water science, andwater quality issues;

2) focus youth learning

experiences on smallwatersheds, where their dailylives have the greatestimpact; and

3) promote community serviceand outreach projects that youth

take ownership of in their own

small watersheds.

In the first two years of this pilot program,with the help of 36 dedicated volunteers,

over 2,350 youth have been reached through4-H Stream Team activities.

For those youth who have completed StreamTeam activities and participated inevaluations, there has been demonstratedknowledge gained in water topics. Ninety-

three percent of participating youthdemonstrated increased knowledge aboutthe physical properties of water, 60%demonstrated increased knowledge aboutwater use and conservation issues, 76%

demonstrated increased knowledge aboutwatersheds and associated landforms, and61% demonstrated increased knowledgeabout water quality issues and

measurement. In addition, 76% of4-HStream Team Members demonstratedincreased knowledge of their own localwatershed boundaries and 166 4-H StreamTeam Members have participated in 10

different community service and outreachprojects that directly benefited their localwatersheds in and around the Conewago

Creek pilot program. Participating youth arealso being evaluated on their skills,attitudes, and interests in science educationand science careers.

As the pilot program approaches the end ofits second year, efforts are beginning to

spread the 4-H Stream Teams programoutside of the USDA funded pilot region and


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into the entire state of Pennsylvania andbeyond. To learn more about the programand some of the resources that have been

developed to make the program a success,visit the Penn State Extension 4-H StreamTeams website at:

http://sfr.psu.edu/youth/4-h-stream-teams-information

Submitted by Jennifer FetterExtension EducatorWatershed & Youth EducationPenn State University

[email protected]

Conservation SubdivisionHandbook

Rapid urbanization, population movementinto suburban and rural areas, and the

ensuing land use changes affect people,businesses, and government agencies, aswell as threaten biodiversity and availabilityof open space. In fact, these trends couldbe the greatest threat to biodiversity,

because the conversion of forested areasand farmland associated with substantialpopulation growth can negatively affectwildlife habitat and threaten or entirely

change ecosystems. Conservation sub-divisions (CSDs) have emerged as an optionfor communities to conserve open space,maintain scenic views, and preserve habitatwithout compromising property rights or

economic return. CSDs use a design strategythat attempts to conserve undivided,buildable tracts of land as communal openspace for residents; and they offer environ-

mental and economic benefits compared toconventional developments in a similarmarket. Despite their benefits, CSDs are an

under-used option in most communities.Thats why NCSU Forestry Extension created

the new publication, ConservationSubdivision Handbook, to help communitiesuse conservation design in their land useplanning. The publication can be found at:www.ces.ncsu.edu/forestry/pdf/ag/ag742.p

df.

Submitted by Susan MooreDir. Forestry & Environmental OutreachNC State University

[email protected]

Initiative News:NNSLE

Help! The Walk our Talk subcommittee isseeking folks who like wading through data

to help compile survey write-in responses(Excel datasheet). Yes, this will lead to apublication!! The next subcommitteeconference call is Dec. 5th, at 3 pm easterntime. If interested, contact Diana Rashash.

Last but not least: a wordfrom your editor

Thank you Western region and others whosubmitted articles for this issue of theANREP newsletter. Northeast region:youre up next! The submission deadline &

schedule for the various regions is asfollows:

Winter issue: Jan. 15 Northeast

Spring issue: April 15 - North Central

Summer issue: July 15 SouthernFall issue: Oct. 15 - Western

Articles should be 600 words or less, and

saved as either a .doc or .docx file. Photosare great. Please provide photo credit andcaption. The editor retains the right tomake minor word and grammar changes, andto reorganize content to improve fit

within the newsletter.

Sincerely,

Diana Rashash, ANREP newsletter editorArea Specialized Agent Natural Resources

NC State [email protected]

ANREP Fall 2011 Newsletter

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