Greene County Soil & Water Conservation District

Stream Stewardship Program

 

Japanese Knotweed

Breakout Session:  Regional Planning

                                                   

 

Participants

Cordelia Sand

             Boquet River = grant with SUNY and EPA to develop awareness programs.

 

Eric Derleth

             Partners for Fish & Wildlife = regional planning a good way to address habitat/stream restoration

problems. Regional coordination for dealing with JK and other problems. Look at USFS for $.

 

Rene VanSchaack

             Need to know how to deal with JK. Stick needed in addition to the carrot. Need some incentive for people to do something. Ready to go but need to know how. Relatively new to have JK.

 

Ira Stern

             Perspective, how to get people to deal with it effectively, is not worth dealing with if can’t get it all.  How to program on a large scale? Integrate with exiting work...

 

Alan White

             Studies by TNC shows there is a problem with JK, now looking to see extent of 13 invasives in

             Catskills...Before we invest in control, what is the extent of threat and damage to biodiversity.

 

John Schwartz

             Education important, use 450 landowners (80,000 acres) to help deal with JK

 

Kristin Sewak

             Sick of JK, struggling with efficacy of long term treatment, what is possible?

 

Mary Lagalbo

             Need more leadership on the part of the State to educate the public on invasives.

 

Justin Perry

             Issues for Catskill Park, how do we prioritize? Individual stewardship plans vary effective.

              * Not many foresters do ID invasives.

 

Cynthia Boehner

             National Wildlife Refuge: Assessment and Analysis of initiatives to deal with invasives. 5 yr.

             Strategic Plan. Need of better coordination led to New England Invasive Plant Group. NE

             Invasive Plant Atlas. Focusing on early detection on a site basis. Get ahead of sites likely

             to be affected/train volunteers to monitor and identify.

 

Discussion

             What can we do now?

 

· First we need to know how bad is it? * Need to answer this question soon...

· Goes to multi objectives

                          * do you need to protect the bank for proper protection

                          * does it affect the fish, wildlife

· How do we convince landowners to do something about JK?

· Awareness development on invasives generally.  How?

· Targeted watershed to get ahead of it?

· Early detection

· Rapid response

 

But watch out for the SAVE THE KNOTWEED constituency if government goes to deal with it.

 

Is there a need for regulatory solutions?

 

* Ban sales of nursery invasives.

*State permitting

*Catskill Park Master Plan doesn’t mention invasives.

 

Need cost/benefit analysis for treatments...

 

Get back to “what’s in it for me”.

 

*Name an invasive species that we have control of. Why this one?

 

Instability of streams leads to proliferation of JK - maybe we should concentrate on stability rather

than eradication.

 

Once we raise awareness, people want funding to deal with it.

 

Recommendations (given lack of knowledge, etc.)

 

                                       Expand awareness

                                       Use Existing opportunities

JK May be good...     10 foot poster child? bigger than an insect.

                                       Prioritize efforts and plan strategies

                                       Identify biodiversity areas and keep them free of invasives.

                                       Top of the watershed down

                                       Need better coordination amongst groups.