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.