Photo Credit: Jeffrey Popp
Trust Grant Program helps restore and protect forested land from invasive species
This week is National Invasive Species Awareness Week, so we’re sharing this stunning photo, which shows how planting bamboo as a screen can go very wrong. In this case, an invasive variety of bamboo and other invasive species spread to over 6 acres and killed off all of the native trees on the forested land on this property. The photo shows the land after the bamboo was removed, a process that took two years.
Corcoran Woods is a 215 acre forested area owned and managed by the State of Maryland located near Sandy Point State Park. Over several decades, invasive plants replaced and degraded almost half of the property’s hardwood forests and were threatening to infiltrate the remaining healthy acreage.
To save this forested land, the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay received grant funding through the Trust’s Anne Arundel County Forestry and Forested Land Protection Grant Program, a partnership with the County, to launch a three-part, large-scale reforestation project. In the most recent phase of the project, grant funds were used to treat the bamboo and remove invasive species. The next phase of the project will plant more than 11,000 tree seedlings on 27 acres. More than 7,000 trees were already planted in 2017.
“The Anne Arundel County Forestry grant program is an innovative and unique opportunity,” says Craig Highfield, Director of Chesapeake Forests for Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. “It provided us resources to be able to address significant forest health issues of our project site well in advance of planting the trees while also allowing us to implement essential post-planting care for our new trees. This better ensures the overall success of the restoration and improves the function of this forest. It is not just a tree planting program.”
The Anne Arundel County Forestry and Forested Land Protection Grant Program implements cost-effective reforestation and greening projects and increases the number of acres of protected forested land in the County. By increasing tree cover and expanding green areas, erosion can be reduced; water and soil quality can be improved; airborne pollutants such as particulates, nitrogen oxide, and carbon monoxide can be filtered; and summer temperatures and resulting ozone pollution and energy use can be reduced.
The grant program is open until March 5, 2018 at 5:00 pm. To learn more and to submit an application, click here.
To learn more about the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay and their forest restoration work, visit their website.
