The Sandhills Weed Management Area

1. STATE NGO FEDERAL LOCAL PRIVATE The Sandhills Weed Management Area Invasive Plant Species Management Cassie Conner – Coordinator casssieconner@gmail.com 217-637-7065 Effects of Fire on Invasive Plant Species Found in the North Carolina Sandhills: Friend and Foe DoD Facilitating Invasive Species Management Partnerships: The Sandhills Weed Management Area was initiated by the US Army Corps of Engineers, ERDC-CERL and Fort Bragg after an extensive survey of Fort Bragg, Pope Air Force Base and Camp Mackall in 2004. This survey combined with herbarium records and floral inventories confirm that at least 39 non-native invasive plant species occur on the three installations infesting an estimated 6,000 acres of rare plant habitat and 18,000 acres of federally- endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker habitat. Non-native invasive plants can also directly and indirectly affect the training and testing mission of military installations. Numerous regulations and legislation exist requiring DOD installations to specifically manage invasive species in order to protect listed species and sustain quality training lands for mission requirements. However, to ensure long term sustainable land management, invasive plant control efforts will need to reach beyond installation boundaries. Otherwise a constant influx of propagules from outside the installations’ borders jeopardizes the success of on-post control efforts. With funding from the DOD Legacy Program, the US Army Corps of Engineers, ERDC-CERL coordinated with the North Carolina Sandhills Conservation Partnership, as well as other neighboring public and private landowners to establish a regional weed management area. The Sandhills Weed Management Area provides the partnerships, shared responsibilities, increased efficiency, and collective vision of regional stakeholders necessary for successful invasive plant management. Weed Management Area Background: The Sandhills Weed Management Area (WMA) exists to help manage and control invasive plant species in the Sandhills region of North Carolina. Herbarium records, floral inventories, and an extensive survey in 2004 confirm that at least 51 non-native invasive plant species occur within the Sandhills region. Approaches to invasive species management that have proven most successful at reducing the long-term magnitude and cost of invasive species impacts often involve building regional partnerships that work together at preventing introductions and responding rapidly to new invasions identified through early detection efforts. Weed Management Areas can be effective at preventing non-native invasive plants from becoming difficult, expensive problems. Cooperative weed management can provide an effective framework to communicate and respond to the early detection of new infestations of highly invasive species. WMAs allow for management to occur across jurisdictional boundaries, helping ensure effective invasive plant species control within the entire region. Through a WMA, land managers are able to work with neighbors to prevent infestations from becoming a problem for everyone. Costs and management burdens are reduced for individual landowners when resources, manpower, and expertise are shared amongst members of the WMA. Landowners can learn a lot from each others’ experiences about control methods that work or don’t work. Expensive machinery or tools can also be shared. Additionally, WMA funds can be used to purchase stocks of materials, like herbicide for all members to use, as can volunteer work forces. WMAs eliminate the need for every landowner in the region to be an invasive species expert with a large stock of resources and manpower. Figure 1. The Local, State, Federal, NGO and private landowner partners in the North Carolina Sandhills Conservation Partnership also participate in the Weed Management Area. Table 1. Compiled from The Nature Conservancy’s Elemental Stewardship Abstracts and The Forest Service's Fire Effects Information System. Figure 2. Local, State, Federal, NGO and private lands managed within the North Carolina Sandhills Conservation Partnership