FNPS Forum
FNPS Committees => Conservation => Topic started by: Karina on February 15, 2007, 10:17:56 AM
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Conservation Committee Report
January, 2007
1) Landscape Guidelines: Final draft of FNPS Landscape Guidelines being completed. Comments and questions have been received for potential inclusion in the final document. This document is scheduled to be finalized and sent out to BOD review two weeks before the February 24th Board of Director's Meeting in which it will be voted on for approval and then public dissemination.
2) Conservation Committee Reps: Ray Wunderlich sent (8) names for conservation representatives in the southern half of the state. Lauren Day has gotten (2) reps from the northern part of the state. These individuals are Convervation reps for their chapters and have all expressed an interest in assisting with the Conservation committee and also reporting on conservation issues in their regions. They are just waiting for a structured "let's get started" email.
3) Conservation Committee Goals: Reed Noss's 1986 ideas from a scanned docuument has been utilized as a basis of the Conservation Committee's goals and objectives and should be finalized soon.
4) Outstanding business: Other than the grant applications,
a) Distribute regional invasive plant brochures put out by WMD's etc. to chapters,
b) Write an article entitled "planting native plants to simulate native plant communities in your backyard" or something similar,
c) Be aware/involved with national efforts to get real protection for rare plants throught Native Plant Conservation Council,
d) Assist in contributing conservation planning information to the 1,000 Friends of Florida website (which will further advance our FNPS Conservation goals and guidelines),
e) Karina Veaudry to begin presenting the FNPS landscape guidelines and conservation planning goals to city and county governments during my travels to chapter meetings (when finalized and approved). Also providing a speakers bureau workshop at the 2007 conference to train speakers from chapters to present this message around the state as well; and
f) Karina Veaudry to look into the USFWS grant. Information being collected from chapters on potential private land opportunities for conservation/restortation for the USFWS Private Lands Stewardship Grant Program (we would hire contractors to work on the grant project(s) through the grant). This grant is due May 1st. Suzanne and Gene will review all when completed. Shirley Denton has approved the idea.
g) Get the Conservation regional reps organized and functioning.
h) Karina Veaudry has pursued communication regarding conservation strategy with conservation planners with The Nature Conservancy (Walt Thompson, Jim Murrian), 1,000 Friends of Florida (Dan Pennington) and the Audubon Society (Charles Lee) during the past year. I recently initiated a meeting to discuss large landscape conservation planning. One result of this 5 hour
meeting was the agreement that we will all participate in a multiple county planning analysis. This study will be in the area of the state where the “Heartland Highway” is proposed. This endeavor will be a blueprint of how the area should develop by looking at the large scale, critical conservation needs FIRST before infrastructure and sector planning. Transfer of development rights and other ‘big picture’ planning strategies will be utilized. This will be done without municipal boundaries looking at the multiple county area as a whole instead of DRI sized planning efforts. The main goal of this exercise will be that the strategies and concepts that we come up with will be a model for future large landscape planning efforts in Florida. It was one of my goals to bring FNPS into the realm of other environmental organizations and start participating in pro-active projects.