Poster Session

Deadline for Submissions has been extended until the 15th!!

March 8^th, 2012 Baranoff Hotel, Juneau

5:30 – 6:30 pm

The Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition (SAWC) and the National Forest Foundation (NFF) invite you to participate in a poster session, as a part of our Community-Based Watershed Management (CBWM) forum to be held in Juneau.

There are numerous examples of community-based watershed projects being implemented across Southeast Alaska. This poster session will provide an opportunity to learn what other municipalities, tribes, watershed councils, agencies and community-based organizations are doing to promote watershed resources and community health. Show us what is working! We want to hear from you.

The formation of an Island wide Watershed Association on Prince of Wales

The Prince of Wales Watershed Association or POW-WA began meeting in the spring of 2011 & approved bylaws on January 31, 2012. The cities of Hollis, Coffman Cove, Thorne Bay, & Hydaburg; the four federally recognized tribes of Craig Tribal Association, Klawock Indian Association, Organized Village of Kasaan, & the Hydaburg Community Association; as well as the unincorporated communities of Naukati Bay & Whale Pass; the USDA Forest Service & National Forest Foundation, SEAAC, & The Nature Conservancy committed to the vision, mission, & goals of working together towards healthy watersheds & healthy communities while sharing success stories across the overlapping boundaries on Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska with both forest level projects like the Sal Creek, Harris River, Twelvemile Forest Projects, & community water and sewer improvements.

POW-WA intends to:

Seek Island-wide support and involvement.
Serve as a clearing house for watershed information, resources, & funding opportunities.
Promote partnerships & collaboration.
Encourage local hire for contracted watershed restoration work
Support clean drinking water & healthy fish & wildlife habitats
Increase public awareness through educational programs & community outreach

Watershed Stewards Program: Connecting Youth with the Landscape Through hands-on Restoration and Monitoring

Sitka Conservation Society’s Watershed Stewards Program motivates and educates the next generation of environmental stewards and professional land managers. We do this by getting our hands dirty! By partnering with the Sitka Ranger District and local schools, we conduct hands-on fish and wildlife habitat restoration, monitoring, and research with grades 7-12 and university students. Our goals are to inspire an ethic of stewardship of our local watersheds, provide useful data to professional land managers to inform the adaptive management cycle, and provide youth with insight into natural resource careers. Past activities have included water quality monitoring, installing in-stream wood structures, monitoring the decomposition of thinning “slash”, measuring the vegetation response to forest restoration efforts, researching winter habitat selection by deer, and even time trials through young growth thinning slash! These activities occur in the same local watersheds that our community of Sitka depends upon for subsistence, recreation, forest products, fish, and the benefits of ecosystem services. Students gain invaluable insights into the need to restore and be good stewards of our local environment.

NOAA Fisheries is implementing a national “Habitat Blueprint” to focus more attention on the importance of healthy habitats to support sustainable fisheries, protected species, and coastal economies.

The Cook Inlet strategy is one of seven regional initiatives nationwide to sustain or improve habitat conditions within defined geographic areas. The Cook Inlet Habitat Conservation Strategy is a new effort to tie together all of NOAA Fisheries’ habitat-related science and management activities and work with partners to meet a common objective: maintaining healthy habitat conditions in an important geographic region. Our goal is to more effectively promote long term habitat conservation by integrating and building upon NOAA’s existing work in Cook Inlet and increasing collaboration with others. We will share scientific information to help identify conservation priorities and maintain healthy habitats for marine life.

Watershed-based Invasive Plant Surveys in Juneau – a first step to understanding threats to fish and wildlife resources

More than 60 species of non-native plants have been found at 2,500+ locations on the Juneau road system. Many of these species are considered invasive and occur within or adjacent to undeveloped landscapes where they threaten native plant communities important to fish and wildlife. In 2011, the Juneau Fish and Wildlife Field Office partnered with the Alaska Association of Conservation Districts to conduct invasive plant surveys in three Juneau watersheds selected for their relatively intact conditions and productive salmon populations. The purpose of these surveys was to map invasive plant distributions and to identify potential threats to fish and wildlife habitats and ecological processes. This poster presents results from Montana Creek, a 10,000 acre watershed supporting four species of salmon as well as numerous aquatic- and riparian-dependent bird and mammal species. The survey was largely confined to foot and off-road vehicle trails, roads, and other disturbed areas within 100 m of the main channel, features that aid in both the dispersal and establishment of invasive plants. Eighteen invasive plant species in 562 infestations covering 26 acres were documented. Five species (reed canarygrass, ornamental jewelweed, Bohemian knotweed, oxeye daisy, and orange hawkweed) ranked 60 (invasiveness) or greater comprised 4% and 3% of the total number and area of infestations, respectively. Most infestations occurred at sites disturbed by human activities and infrastructure (e.g. roads, trails, land development) and natural processes (e.g. wind-thrown trees, bank erosion, fluvial sediment deposition). While roads and trails are the principal routes of invasion, water appears to transport some species from transportation corridors to relatively pristine and semi-remote areas. These surveys will provide essential information for developing prevention and control efforts that effectively use limited resources to address an emerging and poorly understood conservation threat in Juneau.