Southern Indiana CWMA on Agenda for Indiana SWCD Conference

Teena Ligman from the Hoosier NF was a speaker at the annual SWCD conference promoting CWMAs and invasive species management in Indiana.

Soil and Water Conservation Districts were the perfect audience for our message. So when Ray Chattin, a farmer from Knox County, Indiana and one of the Steering Committee members for the Southern Indiana Cooperative Weed Management Area, asked if I would be willing to speak at their annual meeting I didn't hesitate. The three day conference is large and competition for topics is stiff so prospective speakers are asked to submit a prospectus of their talk to a panel. I did so and waited to see if CWMAs would make the cut.

It did, and the panel allocated a one hour time slot for me to present my topic. I asked our CWMA President Tom Tremain to be my co-presenter and he and I put a presentation together.

We also worked with the Knox County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) to do a booth. According to Ray Chattin and Troy Hinkle - both from Knox County and both active in the CWMA, throughout the conference, participants mingle in the booth area for breaks and between sessions and if the CWMA had a booth set up it would be a good forum for questions and interaction about invasive species. Knox County SWCD paid for the booth space. We had a variety of fliers and information on our CWMA and on invasive species and I offered to do two pull-up banners for the booth. One banner could feature our most recent CWMA cooperative project - where we worked together to remove bush honeysuckle from 3 acres in a Bloomington, Indiana park. The second banner could feature 9 significant invasive species and how to join our CWMA.

Knox County then suggested that if they purchased the hardware for the invasive species display - could I tailor it to Knox County? So we picked the 9 species - and then the message was still to join the CWMA but that if you found these species or wanted more information to contact the Knox County SWCD -with their contact information. A banner message at the bottom asked people to do their part to control invasive species in Knox County. At the booth we then took orders from SWCDs to get a banner for their county. Chattin and Hinkle suggested if each of our county SWCD offices had a banner display on their invasive species it would go a long way toward increasing awareness. With the portability of these displays SWCDs could take them to different farm meetings and to the county fairs. At a cost of just over $200/display, we got a lot of interest from the different offices in ordering displays.

Tom and I presented a series of challenges to the SWCDs in our presentation. We asked them to get more involved. For those who were not in our 36 county CWMA area, we encouraged them to collaborate and start their own CWMA. For those that were in the SICWMA, we asked them to include invasive training in their field days and offered to help them with that planning. We encouraged them to order boot brush stations for their natural areas (and provided forms to do so) and don't dump bait stickers for their county lakes. We presented ideas for educational programs and I've already been asked to be a feature speaker at their educator's workshop in April to develop some new programs. We encouraged them to include information on invasive species in the packets they sent out to landowners.

It was a cold blustery day in Indiana but a good day for our CWMA. People asked good questions that made us think, and they were excited about what we were doing and that helps reaffirm that we're on the right track. The SWCDs want to help and work with us and that's what a CWMA is all about.