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Monthly E-Mail and Online Newsletter

March, 2006

Contents- Click on the item to go to the details
  1. March calendar: 4th-Restoration at Mendocino Headlands, 15th-Community Meeting in Fort Bragg
  2. Roadside Weed Survey: your help is requested!
  3. Latest additions to the website: Invasive Plant Management: Brachypodium sylvaticum, Roadside Weed Survey Forms
  4. Request for distribution information on tamarisk, Arundo donax and yellow starthistle
  5. 3rd Annual Invasive Weeds Day at the Capitol, March 8, 2006
  6. In-kind reports up to February 28, 2006 are requested.
  7. Summary of in-kind contributions for January, 2006 are available.
  8. Coordinator's report for January, 2006 is available.
  9. Minutes of the January and February Planning Committee meetings are available.
  10. January Workgroups Briefs and Minutes are available.
  11. Resource of the month: Aliens-L
  12. How to submit items for the MCWMA newsletter.

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  1. Our calendar for March is now available [click here].  All MCWMA meetings are open to the public.  A highlight is the Fort Bragg Community Meeting, which will be held Wednesday, March 15, 2006. We also encourage you to support the First Annual Joan Curry Memorial Habitat Conservation Day on March, 4, 2006, at the Mendocino Headlands.

  2. Initiation of the MCWMA Roadside Weed Survey. Please help us map invasive weeds within the MCWMA by participating in the MCWMA Roadside Weed Survey. Suggested steps:
  3. Thanks for your help!

  4. The latest edition to our website is an "Invasive Plant Management" page [click here], with subheadings for news items, each of our workgroups and committees, and resources for Invasive Plant Management, including abstracts from the scientific literature about invasive plants. Please send comments or content to add to the website to webmaster@mcwma.org.  The News webpage will be used to distribute news of particular interest to MCWMA stakeholders from newspaper articles, listserv postings and other sources.  For example,  [click here] to see the posting on an Alert for Brachypodium sylvaticum. As these postings become dated, they will be moved to the News Archive.

  5. Request for distribution information on tamarisk, Arundo donax and yellow starthistle: Ginger Bradshaw of UC Davis is doing a master's thesis on modeling the potential distribution of tamarisk, Arundo donax and yellow starthistle in California.  She needs information on the known distribution (current or historical). The essential data are: plant name, x, y locations, and projection information (including coordinate system, datum and zone).  For more details on the request, contact Tara at coord@mcwma.org

  6. Invasive Weeds Day at the Capitol For the third year, the invasive weed issue will be addressed in Sacramento at Invasive Weeds Day at the Capitol, on March 8, 2006. The MCWMA has no direct representation at the event this year, but at CDFA's request we sent in our Fact Sheet as evidence of an active Weed Management effort in our area. Of particular interest this year is AB 2479, a bill that would mandate an annual appropriation of $2.5 million to Cooperative Weed Management Areas.

  7. In-kind contribution reports up to February 28, 2006 are requested.  MCWMA partners and associates:  if you have not done so already, please turn in your reports on in-kind contributions for the period of February 1 to February 28, 2006.  Form are available from the website in a variety of formats [click here]. Please recall that all invasive plant-related efforts, volunteer or paid, for the Mendocino Coast Weed Management Area may be reported, and help us meet our target for matching contributions to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant.  However, please note on the form if the hours were paid from federal funds or are used as matching funds for another federal grant, as we cannot use such efforts as local matching contributions for our grant.

  8. Summaries of In-Kind Contributions.  The in-kind contributions that you report will be used in two ways:
    1.     a summary of matching contributions for the NFWF grant is contained in the monthly coordinator's report
    2.     on-the-ground weed management efforts are summarized in the monthly projects workgroup brief

  9. Coordinator's report for January, 2006 is available [click here].  The report contains project management information for the grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Pulling Together Initiative.

  10. Now available are the minutes of the Planning Committee meetings of [January 23, 2006].  [February 9, 2006].  Topics of highest priority at present are completion of the Strategic Plan.

  11. January Workgroup Briefs and Minutes are available. All workgroups have been drafting sections of the Strategic Plan, as well as continuing efforts on tasks from the NFWF PTI project.

  12. Resource Review.  I plan to review an online resource from our Resource webpage each month, starting with e-mail discussion lists.  Last month, I described the CalWeedTalk mailing list.  This month, I would like to introduce you to a global list : the Aliens Listserv. Aliens-L is a listserver dedicated to alien invasive species, with a focus on those that threaten biodiversity. It allows users to freely seek and share information on alien invasive species and related issues. Participation from all who are interested in the invasive species problem is welcome.

    Here is a sample posting (from Sandy Lloyd in Western Australia):

    "good article about weeds (& hurricanes) in Florida
    http://www.tampatrib.com/MGBFD9J86KE.html
    ...........This is where the seedlings of Brazilian pepper trees, that venerable, invasive enemy of natural Florida, are born. The new patches of tender, turned-up dirt are incubators for the seeds tossed around by Wilma. Young trees are pushing up easily from the churned dirt. Hurricanes are making the state more vulnerable to the spread of nonnative, threatening plants, botanists and invasive species experts say. The fear is that these hated, foreign plants quickly will choke off native plants in freshly wounded landscapes................... quotes Alan Tye and others

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/26/AR2006022601025.html
    Invasive Species Threaten Galapagos's Diversity
    By Juliet Eilperin
    Washington Post Staff WriterMonday, February 27, 2006; Page A06 SANTIAGO ISLAND, Ecuador -- Just minutes after visitors scramble onto the black volcanic beach here, they face vivid evidence of how humans have transformed this archipelago -- even though the island is uninhabited. The weathered skull of a goat hangs on a tall pole, bearing witness to the many alien species that now threaten Charles Darwin's legacy............."

    To subscribe to Aliens-L or to read archived postings, [click here]

  13. How to submit items for the MCWMA newsletter.  The MCWMA e-mail and online newsletter will be distributed on the first of each month.  Please send items for the newsletter to webmaster@mcwma.org at least 2 days in advance to allow time for editing.


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