National Forest Foundation Grant will Help Hiawatha Wilderness
Enthusiastic volunteers have been the muscle behind our NNIS removal efforts forestwide.
Superior Watershed Partnership will inventory, map and eradicate invasives
In mid-April, the National Forest Foundation announced its first round of 2008 award recipients for its Matching Awards Program. The Superior Watershed Partnership (SWP) and has been awarded the grant in cooperation with the Hiawatha National Forest, US Forest Service. The SWP will utilize the grant conduct invasive inventory, mapping and eradication in the Forest's Rock River and Big Island Lake Wildernesses. The project will move forward this spring and summer.
The Superior Watershed Partnership is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the protection and restoration of the rivers and watersheds of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The mission of the Superior Watershed Partnership is to protect and improve the natural resources of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on a watershed basis; by promoting responsible individual and community actions that ensure a sustainable environment, encourage a sustainable economy and help improve quality of life.
Carl Lindquist, Superior Watershed Partnership, expressed his enthusiasm for the cooperative project. The Forest Service is also excited about this opportunity to get a jump on non-native, invasive species within two of its congressionally designated Wildernesses.
According to Ted Schiltz, Recreation and Wilderness Program Manager, Hiawatha NF, "This is a great opportunity for the forest to work with our partners to achieve the NNIS goals of the 10 year wilderness challenge."
"And furthermore," says Terry Miller, Hiawatha National Forest Botanist, "we really look forward to the day that our Wildernesses are also 'weed-free zones.'"
The NFF Matching Awards Program awards grants of all sizes to nonprofit organizations nationwide that perform on-the-ground conservation work to benefit our National Forests and Grasslands. Projects funded through these grants fall within one of four programmatic focus areas: community-based forestry, wildlife habitat improvement, watershed restoration or recreation.
As a matching awards program, recipients are required to raise non-federal dollars to match funds provided by the NFF. The Program effectively doubles the resources available to nonprofit partners to implement projects that directly benefit our 193-million-acre National Forest System.