SBCWMA Newsletter                                                        September 2006 Addendum

Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 3:01 PM

 

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News

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WMA Request for Proposals due in Mid-October (9/12/06)

Steve Schoenig of the California Department of Food and Agriculture has updated the weed management areas on the types of projects that will be most compelling to the committee that will be awarding the $1.5 million recently added to the state budget for WMAs.  The Request for Proposal is still going through departmental review and won't be released until Friday.  Proposals will be due in mid October!  This issue is expected to be a hot topic at the Statewide WMA Meeting this September 19 and 20 in Woodland, California.

Each WMA will be funded at $30,000, or $10,000 or zero per county in the WMA.  Unfortunately because there is only $1.2 million for the whole state, not all WMAs will be funded in this round of funding.  The Santa Barbara County Weed Management Area will be applying to this fund.  SBCWMA members are invited to provide input to David Chang, dchang@co.santa-barbara.ca.us, (805) 681-5600.

            The CDFA will be looking for projects that place an emphasis in one of 4 areas, as follows.

1) Eradication of pioneer, outlier populations of CDFA Rated noxious weeds or High and Moderate Rated Cal-IPC weeds.  A map of these populations in relationship to others in the county AND region must be supplied to establish the limited distribution.

2) Intensive containment of weeds described above by defining and holding a leading edge(s) of invasion.  This includes eradication of plants that exist beyond a defined no-spread line(s).  A regional map of known populations with the no-spread lines and outliers will be needed to establish the intent of the project.

3) Support of a highly contiguous, cohesive and cooperative regional control project with existing activity and funding where a) receiving these funds will allow control on lands not currently funded and b) will greatly contribute to success of the regional project.

4) Control of highly damaging weeds that are not necessarily rare in a region but are occurring in an area of very high value.  Value is not necessarily measured economically, but can be for example the presence of endangered species, high recreational use, areas prone to extensive spread.  Also in this category would be control-method demonstration-plots for use in technology transfer workshops.

 

Call for Papers Wildlife Society/Cal-IPC Joint Symposium and Conference (9/11/06)

            The California Invasive Plant Council and The Western Section of The Wildlife Society is issuing a call for papers for its joint symposium, Wildlife & Invasive Plants:  Finding Common Ground to Protect Ecological Diversity, scheduled for January 30-31, 2007 at the Portola Plaza Hotel in Monterey, California.  This 1½ day symposium preceding the Western Section’s 2007 Annual Conference features research and management updates, a poster session, and a panel discussion.  The symposium will provide a forum for wildlife and land managers, scientists, and representatives of regulatory agencies and other organizations to exchange ideas and identify critical information needs. 

            Paper abstracts are due October 27, 2006.  Poster abstracts are due November 10, 2006.

            The attached document further describes the call for papers.  More information can be found at http://www.tws-west.org/, by clicking on “Call for Papers”.  Note that there is a call for papers for the pre-conference symposium and the conference itself.  This particular item and the attachment is a call for papers for the pre-conference symposium.

 

Correction – Carthamus lanatus (9/9/06)

            In the July 2006 SBCWMA Newsletter I reported that smooth distaff thistle, Carthamus baeticus, a B-rated noxious weed was discovered in northern Santa Barbara County.  It has since been determined that the species found was, instead, wooly distaff thistle, Carthamus lanatus – also a B-rated noxious weed, and also a first confirmed sighting of the weed in the County (Smith described it in the county previously, but it was not confirmed).  For more information about the weed visit the Encycloweedia.

 

DOI Comment Period Open for Its 5 Year Strategic Plan (9/7/06)

            The US Department of the Interior has made available and is inviting comment on its Draft Plan: DOI Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Strategic Plan Fiscal Year 2007 – 2012 (as required by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993).  Public comments will be accepted until October 22, 2006.

            Interior’s GPRA Plan sets out specific goals for their four mission responsibilities: Resource Protection, Resource Use, Recreation, and Serving Communities.  It establishes measurable performance targets in each area, along with targets for Departmental management initiatives.  The complete draft plan (1.6MB) is available at http://www.doi.gov/ppp/Strategic%20Plan%20FY07-12/strat_plan_fy2007_2012.pdf  

            Written comments can be provided by email: GPRAplancomments@ios.doi.gov; by fax: (202) 208–2619; or by mail: U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of the Secretary—Planning and Performance Management, Attention: DOI Strategic Planning Coordinator, 1849 C Street, NW., Mail Stop 5258, Washington, DC 20240.  For further information contact: LeRon E. Bielak, DOI Strategic Planning Coordinator at (202) 208–1818.  

            In particular, Interior would be interested in viewpoints on effective quantitative, outcome-oriented performance measures that are proposed for the following areas: (a) Law enforcement (as it applies to resource protection and public safety on public lands), (b) science (both in terms of the applications of science and of advancing knowledge in natural resource areas), (c) energy access (specifically if a more readily understandable context for measurement is possible for example, see Resource Use measures #2 and 8), and (d) recreation capacity (whether recreation mission measures #4–5 are satisfactory indicators of increased capacity). However, this request for comments is not intended to be limited to these topics.  

            The full Federal Register Notice is available at: http://www.doi.gov/ppp/Strategic%20Plan%20FY07-12/register_notice_fy2007_2012.pdf

            Of interest to WMAs and environmentalists is that the Dept of Interior includes the following government agencies Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Minerals Management Service, National Park Service, Office of Surface Mining, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey.  The draft plan discusses issues pertaining to factors affecting the Native Plant Materials Development program, the role of traditional ecological knowledge in decision making, the importance of inter-governmental and governmental/non-governmental partnerships, volunteerism, resource protection and resource use priorities.

 

 

 

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Acknowledgement

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This newsletter is compiled from various sources, including emails I receive from people who are involved in the invasive weed field, and from listserves.  I modify the emails, but sometimes they are inserted here nearly verbatim.  I thank those people for this information and for their devotion to protecting and conserving habitat.  If you recognize something that you wrote and object to its use here or on my website, contact me and I will promptly remove it from my website.

 

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Sincerely,

David Chang

Agricultural Commissioner's Office

County of Santa Barbara

(805) 681-5600

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