Making Our Forests Healthier: Thank You!

With the support of generous donations from our Healthy Forest Friends, Athens Conservancy has increased efforts to control the spread of invasive plants in our nature preserves. From February through mid-April, our hard-working land steward, Bill Rucker (at left in photo), focused on removal of invasive shrubs such as privet, burning bush, multiflora rose, and autumn olive in Blair Preserve and the LindyRoosenburg Preserve. From mid-April through May, the focus switched to garlic mustard in several preserves. In late May, another target was wineberry near the John Knouse Trail in Canaan Preserve.

Bill was joined by a part-time assistant land steward Roni Clark (center), and later, by intern Malie Curry to further the stewardship team’s capacity. With the burst of understory growth in May, the crew’s summer focus has switched from invasive plant control to trail maintenance, mostly in Baker and Canaan Preserves, so trails remain easily accessible to hikers and other explorers. This has not always been true in past summers, when some trails became too overgrown by encroaching vegetation to be very inviting. The increase in stewardship efforts allowing us to carefully maintain our 10 miles of trails was made possible with the help of the Healthy Forest Fund, supplemented by a grant from the Athens County Foundation.