CHARLESTON — Spring is always a busy time around the NorthWoods campus. The Conservation Corps Crew gears up to begin spring trail projects, the Forestry team starts fieldwork for management plans and invasive species control, and the Conservation Science program finds new homes for thousands of young trees and shrubs.
To date, the Conservation Science team has completed a scheduled 5 weeks of planting projects, with a total of 7,273 trees and shrubs, ranging in size and style from 18” live stakes and small tubestock, to bareroot trees up to 10 feet tall.
All have been planted at sites across northern Vermont.
The planting season began with three projects in partnership with the Connecticut River Conservancy.
The first week, the crew headed south to West Fairlee to complete two planting projects on tributaries of the Connecticut River. From there, they moved north to work on revegetating the area around the East Burke Dam removal site.
The next project took place on the Johnson Farm Wildlife Management Area in Canaan in partnership with the Essex County Natural Resources Conservation District and the VT Wildlife Fund.
At the end of the same week, the crew did a small reforestation planting on private property.
The final four projects were all riparian buffer planting projects that were funded by Ecosystem Restoration Program Grants from the VT Department of Environmental Conservation.
One project was on a small tributary of Lake Memphremagog in Newport, one was on Fish & Wildlife land on the Barton River in Coventry, and two were on the Black River in Albany.
The NorthWoods planting crew’s labor was funded through an Ecosystem Restoration Program Grant from 2017.
This is important and great news for o ur region. I think we should consider partnering with the Arbor Day Foundation who are partnering with people all over the world and might even enhance what we are trying to do.