Dear SERNW Members,

Welcome to the April 2017 edition of our newsletter! 
 

Many of you, like us, are probably wondering where things are heading for our field with political changes potentially affecting funding and staffing in the days and months ahead that could have far reaching effects on the practice of ecological restoration and management in the Pacific Northwest.  Reflecting on this uncertainty, we are struck by the deep roots and symbiotic relationships across our region, with community partnerships, statewide and national initiatives, and the great love for our natural landscapes that motivate countless individuals to connect with and restore these places we love. Like the ecosystems that sustain us, the diversity of our regional organization makes us resilient to adverse conditions and  political disturbances. We will need to respond to changing conditions by growing deeper and broader roots for our work and will emerge stronger for it. We invite you to contact us with ideas of how we might adapt to changing conditions as we deliver SERNW programming.

Entering 2017, our organization is as strong as ever, with active committees working since our last conference to bring you several initiatives. As you will read below, this off-conference year we will produce webinars for our members, with  a great slate of topics. We are organizing several workshops and symposia for restoration practitioners to provide continuing education opportunities in response to the SER Certified Ecological Restoration Practitioner program. SERNW is marching full steam ahead with planning our October 2018 Regional Conference in Spokane, in partnership with the Pacific NW Chapter of Society of Wetland Scientists. In addition we have submitted a proposal to host other North American Chapters of SER at this meeting to bring a continental perspective to our regional gathering of science and practice. 

On April 22nd, following the Seattle March for Science, we will be holding SERNW's first Restoration Drinks meetup , in partnership with Seattle's Restore Cascadia group, to build our local restoration practitioner community. We invite others across the region to gather following the march as well. You may have recently received a letter from SER's Executive Director Bethanie Walder, containing SER's statement of support for the March on Science this April 22. During these changing times, our organization has added advocacy to its toolbox, and our international board developed a toolkit to guide our approach to this work. SERNW will join the March for Science in Seattle, and hope that members across this region will connect with each other to support science guided policy for ecological restoration.  

Wednesday, May 10, 2017, 8:30am – 3:30pm
University of Washington Botanic Gardens
Center for Urban Horticulture
3501 NE 41^st ST., Seattle 98105
Cost: $85 (lunch included)
Full-time students and corps members: $45

Report submitted by  Michael Fazekas, michael.fazekas@umontana.edu

UMSER is coordinating with the Ecosystems Science and Restoration Capstone projects (NRSM 344 under Professor Ben Coleman) to provide materials and personnel for volunteer days taking place in April of this year.  The projects are:  Vegetative Restoration at Rock Creek with Five Valleys Land Trust, Thinning and Burning on Mount Sentinel with Missoula Parks and Recreation, Wetland Restoration at Nine Mile Creek with Trout Unlimited, and a Vegetative and Soils Project at Mount Haggin near Anaconda with the Big Hole Watershed Committee.

We are planning on doing a native plant sale later in the spring, visiting a previous year's capstone (Cedar Creek Large Woody Debris Restoration Project), having a pie-off competition, and various other ideas have come up. 

The biggest event is a planned annual retreat (for which we received ASUM funding), date TBD.  The retreat is designed to be a two night cabin stay in the Flathead/Glacier area with games, voting for new officers, a glacier field trip, guest speakers, a couple small demonstrations, and implementation of a mentoring program .

The Student Chapter has lots of other ides for this spring, including documentary/movie nights focused on restoration,  assisting with new student orientation at the end of the summer, doing a group float on the Clark Fork River, entertaining guest speakers, tabling at the University Center, doing some revising on the charter and adding the position of Graduate Student Adviser, attempting to garner funding to send a member to the SER World Conference in Brazil, creating a last lecture series for CFC professors to possibly be held at the M on Mount Sentinel, and beginning an annual invitational discussion/forum (hosted at the University and focusing on climate, ecology, and environment).

RESTORATION HIGHLIGHTS

by Mason McKinley,
Fire Program Manager
Center for Natural Lands Management
(Excerpt)

A diverse mosaic of fire dependent prairies and oak woodlands once dominated the south Puget Sound region. Lack of managed fire during the past 150 years has contributed to significant habitat loss and impact to native species. The reintroduction of fire to these now rare habitats has long been identified as critical for successful conservation of prairies and oak woodlands and the species that depend on them.

Unable to rely on local fire suppression agencies to support ecological burns at the needed scale, Center for Natural Lands Management (CNLM) and its partners in South Puget Sound have established a collaborative prescribed ecological burn program with capacity to accomplish burning at the landscape level. Prior to 2008, partners were only conducting one to two burns annually. Since then, we have steadily scaled up our operational capacity, currently completing 70-90 burns and up to 2500 acres in a year.

Though there are numerous challenges to applying ecologically appropriate fire 50-65 days out of the year (next to the state capital and in a region with a burn window that is highly limited by weather), our partners have clearly built the capacity to use fire at a scale relevant to the landscape. Since 2008, there have been ample opportunities to celebrate success, learn from mistakes and grapple with the ever-present and changing challenges. Following is a rundown of some of our key outcomes and lessons learned.

Fire for Fire’s Sake

Strength in Collaboration

A core principle behind the Puget Sound ecological burn program is collaboration: together we are more effective and efficient at meeting our shared objectives than we are on our own. By pooling resources, each partner’s overall commitment of resources can remain relatively low, but when combined, the team has remarkable capacity that is more resilient over the long-term. The list of partners is long, and includes federal, state, and county agencies, non-profit organizations, and private landowners. Our biggest partner for regional conservation is Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM).  At Tenalquot Prairie, for example, CNLM manages the preserve for The Nature Conservancy to restore prairie habitat and rare species recovery . The site is one in a network of properties that support Department of Defense objectives for recovery of protected species off JBLM, to reduce regulatory impacts on military training lands. Recovery efforts are collaboratively supported throughout the region by WA Department of Fish and Wildlife, WA Department of Natural Resources, as well as other non-profit and private landowners.....Read More  (See the rest of the article and accompanying figures on our Restoration Highlights website)
(Photos from South Sounds Prairies and CNLM)