CWMA Task Force Meets

The Cooperative Weed Management Area (CWMA) Task Force of NIIPN met on Tuesday, June 10 at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Field Research Station in Porter to discuss the feasibility of having NIIPN formalize more into a CWMA.

Concerns were expressed by some participants about the need for such a venture. Thoughts offered about the need included:

+Leveraging resources.
+Offering a regionwide approach to a regionwide problem.
+Learning how weed problems emerge in the first place.
+Access to more resources (money, funding) may be the most compelling +argument for forming a CWMA.
+Joint education and outreach efforts to the public.
+Rapid detection of invasives with the possibility of rapid response.

Concerns expressed about this initiative included:
· The difficulty in engaging industry, pipeline companies, railroads, INDOT and utilities that maintain corridors where invasives can spread.
· The difficulty in engaging landowners on the periphery of biodiverse areas, such as the NPS. For instance, small towns such as Beverly Shores and Ogden Dunes may not have the resources to control invasives.
· Need to be careful to set some reasonable expectations about what a CWMA can accomplish. Need to hone in on some specific needs.
· In comparison to western lands, the natural areas in this part of the country are owned by many, many different owners, making coordination that much more difficult.
· Current county governments don’t have a person appointed to weed control. Might be a hard sell for the counties.

In order for the CWMA to achieve success, a targeted Strategic Plan and Workplan would need to be developed.

The participants also felt that there is a strong need to develop some areawide GIS maps showing invasive infestations. An overlay of land use, especially rail and transportation corridors, would be especially helpful in showing vectors that spread invasives to other areas. Susan MiHalo offered to talk with NIRPC about whether or not they can provide land-use data. In addition, it might be useful to alert NIRPC about the potential for formalizing NIIPN into a CWMA and to ascertain whether or not they would be supportive of the effort.

Members of the Task Force offered to try to pull their data together to get the mapping started. John Ervin offered to assist with the effort. Once we have some coordinated mapping that is useful, others might be convinced to follow suit.

As a follow up to these discussions, Susan MiHalo contacted John Swanson at NIRPC. He was very supportive of the concept. Of course, the first thing he asked was whether not the project was funded. He offered to have Shannon Lefever, NIRPC GIS Technician, contact Susan about the status of land-use mapping at NIRPC. John also indicated that Mary McConnell from The Nature Conservancy applied for funding for a study of how invasives spread along transportation corridors. Unfortunately, the funding was denied. It might be helpful to obtain a copy of that funding request from Mary.

Shannon called Susan right away. Their maps are not where they would like them to be yet. They are still waiting for data from Lake County. She also indicated that NIRPC may not be in a position to provide some of the data. We may have to go to the individual counties to obtain the shape files. She will check and let Susan know what is available.

A helpful phone call with Carol Cook at Save the Dunes Conservation Fund also revealed that some important groundwork has been laid already with respect to building a CWMA. In 2006-2007 Carol implemented a grant for Chicago Wilderness titled “Developing a Regional Capacity for Invasive Species Assessment and Abatement.” A copy of the final report may be found on http://www.savedunes.org/land_program/chicago_wilderness/. You are urged to read it!

Through the grant it was learned that area land managers, including city park managers, are very concerned about invasive species identification and mapping but lack the resources to undertake that task. On the other hand, it was noted that land managers for state, county and federal agencies are much more interested in mapping and identification. The needs of NIIPN members are diverse!