I’m working on changing this blog into more of a how-to site that tells people how to do little restoration projects on their own or get involved with groups that do bigger projects. Since I’m also writing Beth at Home and Abroad and 12 Cities, 1 Year, it’s going to be a slow process.

Mexican poet Homero Aridjis has been working to save Monarch Butterflies for decades. He was one of the people who persuaded the Mexican government to create the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in 1986. Here’s a story about him:

“Saving monarch butterflies stirs the ‘poetical soul’ of Homero Aridjis,” Gary G. Yerkey, Christian Science Monitor, June 6, 2011

On Saturday I hiked up Spruce Gulch, off Left Hand Canyon Road in Boulder, to see the weed research and eradication projects being conducted there. Tim Seastedt, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, says the landowners asked him and his colleagues to help control weeds without using herbicides. The owners didn’t want chemicals in the water supply.

We parked along a meadow where a student has installed rain-out devices to determine how cheatgrass (a winter annual) responds to different levels of precipitation. Seastedt said these devices keep 50 percent of precipitation off the grasses growing below them. Cheatgrass is classified as a noxious weed in Colorado, but it is on List C, which means the state will help cities and counties more effectively manage cheatgrass, if they wish to do so. In another experiment, the meadow was mowed regularly to 2 inches, which caused cheatgrass to yield to storksbill, another winter annual.

Up around the bend, we stopped to look at this patch of western wheatgrass. Plant ecologist David Buckner pointed out that there was little to no cheatgrass here because invasive species like cheatgrass cannot compete with native perennials. This conclusion has been borne out at other study sites in this area by planting spotted knapweed seedlings along with perennials. Only a few of the seedlings survived.

The chimney and foundation below are all that’s left of a homestead and blacksmith’s forge, destroyed in the Overland fire. Seastedt said his research team was planning on using the homestead as a staging site for their experiments.

Farther up the road, we passed the access for running water at the site, which Seastedt said is most helpful for conducting this kind of research. It is a siphon system, and he described how they had to pour many, many gallon jugs of water into a small hose in order to restart the siphon one year.

Despite the weeds invading this land, many native species still survive, such as these creeping mahonia, pussytoes (with white flowers), and horsetail. Ancient forests of horsetail were one of the sources of coal.

We walked through a fence that marked the boundary of the area where the landowner hand-pulled spotted knapweed. Seastedt and his colleagues also do hand-pulling of spotted knapweed, but they have introduced five different species of insects (biological controls) to make the job easier. The insects do not eradicate the plant—that would eradicate their food supply—but they do discourage it to the point that native plants can compete with spotted knapweed in disturbed areas.

Insects have also proven effective in reducing the spread of dalmation toadflax in Spruce Gulch. I asked Seastedt if the team studied the insects to ensure they didn’t spread to other plants. He said they had tried to force the weevils to eat penstemon, a close relative of toadflax, and the weevils didn’t like it.

As we hiked up to the ridge, we could see how the 1988, 2003, and 2011 fires had affected the area. Buckner said that studies of burned areas that have been “restored” show less diversity of plants than areas left to recover on their own.

Restoration is an ever-evolving science, as that conversation showed, and I for one hope that future “management” of ecosystems will use the lightest touch possible. We can’t avoid management in the future because we have altered ecosystems around the world so drastically, but we can point those ecosystems in a direction that will allow them to recover on their own.

The National Forest Foundation will spend the next five years planting trees in an area of Angeles National Forest that was scorched to the dirt.

The Station Fire, alleged to be arson, started in August 2009 and was contained in October 2009, burning 161,000 acres of the national forest near the city of Los Angeles. About 14,000 of those acres were deforested.

I liked this paragraph from the article:

Workers have been collecting seeds from other parts of the forest in elevations that correspond to the destroyed areas. The seeds have been sent to a nursery that has been growing the saplings being planted in the forest. Officials hope to plant a variety of fir and pine trees on an estimated 4,200 acres this year and already have planted about 500,000 trees.

In the last few years restoration has definitely gone local, with open space officials doing their best to plant seeds gathered locally in an effort to preserve biodiversity. For example, Boulder County holds numerous seed collection events. Those seeds are given to local farmers, who grow them and harvest the new bounty of seeds. Boulder County then uses those locally grown varieties of seed in its restoration efforts, making sure that varieties adapted to local microclimates are preserved.

But restoration is a complicated business, and we’re still learning how to do it well.

“What I’ve been told is that they’re planting Coulter pines in areas that used to have big cone Douglas fir and they’re doing it because that’s what they have available,” said Jon Keeley, research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey Western Ecological Research Center. “They have a lot of them, they’re cheap and they grow fast.”

Keeley says that is not good ecosystem management. Who knows? Maybe he’s right. Then again, maybe the big cone Douglas fir is one of those trees that needs fire to help its seeds sprout.

It’s very important to restore quickly after a fire, especially in a forest like this one so near a city. Erosion and mudslides have already caused damage in the area, so the most vulnerable areas should be reseeded and replanted with trees as soon as possible. Kudos to the National Forest Foundation for taking on this responsibility.

Source: “Parts of Fire-Ravaged Calif. Forest to Be Restored,” Noaki Schwartz, Associated Press, April 15, 2011

I live on a cul-de-sac in a suburb of Denver with a superb view of the mountains and sometimes hellish winds in the winter. My husband and I have lived here almost 15 years, and we’re about to move, so it’s time for me to meditate on restoration of a suburban yard. I tried really hard to make my huge, oddly shaped yard into something native and sustainable, and I succeeded—but only in part.

I used to have 3 gardens beds in the northwestern corner of my yard, constructed of arsenic-soaked logs. In 2003 I tore them out, took some to Resource 2000 so that they could be reused, and sent the rest to the landfill, where they can leak chemicals into the groundwater near Golden. I converted that section of the yard to buffalograss, a little blue grama (grama means “grass” in Latin), side oats grama, Penstemon strictus (a blue, tubular flower native to this area), rabbitbrush, and other plants. Some curly-cup gumweed came up every two years of its own accord, and a little bluestem (I think) seems to have done the same. (Note: Lots of native plants have “weed” as part of their names. Many of them are quite beautiful. I don’t know that I would call gumweed beautiful, but I like it.)

I dug new garden beds on the other side of the yard, and come the next spring, I realized my mistake. These new beds are all the way around the house from the only outdoor spigot, and I can’t use the sprinkler system until May. So I had to hand-water the beds if I wanted to grow vegetables before May. (Mistake #1)

But my buffalograss meadow was slowly filling in, and I had high hopes that it would soon become sustainable and require only minimal weeding. (Mistake #2) Seven years later, I still spend hours and hours weeding that area every spring. It looks beautiful in the summer, fall, and winter, but in the spring it looks like a beige patch with lots of bright green weeds.

Lesson #1: Don’t try to convert a small area into a “native meadow,” especially if all the weed seeds from Boulder County blow into it every winter. A larger area will work better, and if it is exposed, you might want to plant some native shrubs to keep out a few of the weed seeds. You can still plant lots of natives in the part of your yard reclaimed from bluegrass. If you want to plant just a few shrubs, you can cover the ground with porous landscape fabric first, which will discourage weeds. If you want to plant spreaders, you can use a mulch like pea gravel. Wood mulch may leach nitrogen from the soil as it decomposes. (After having used lots of landscape fabric and various sizes of gravel in my yard, I’ve decided I prefer to avoid the landscape fabric. When I’ve pulled it up to plant something, the soil under it always looks kind of gray and … rotten, almost. Also, that gravel has to be mined somewhere.)

Lesson #2: Soil preparation is key. Spend at least a summer, and possibly an entire year, killing perennial weeds like bindweed. Then dump manure or compost or whatever your neighbors can tolerate all over your yard, and till it in the next spring. Then plant. (Creating a yard design in advance doesn’t hurt, either.)

Most of all, I wish I had converted my front yard to native plants. (Mistake #3) It would have shown my neighbors that they can create lovely landscaping with native flowers and grasses. I could have taken the lower half of that bed near the front door and grown vegetables. Converting lawns, especially front lawns, to veggie gardens is the newest craze.

Despite the mistakes I made, the futile things I did over and over again until I couldn’t stand them anymore, and my complete lack of planning, I managed to produce a lot of beauty in my yard. I never went chemical-free, but I limited myself to Roundup to kill thistles and Weed-Be-Gone (twice, I think) to get bindweed out of the lawn. The rest of the time, beneficial insects could live safely in my yard.

If you’re interested in converting bluegrass to something more interesting and sustainable, I suggest The Undaunted Garden by local landscaping expert Lauren Springer Ogden.

“River of Raptors“: The title of this article from the September–October issue of Audubon sends shivers down my spine. And the way they describe the spectacle: “Day after day, through most of September, October, and November, the birds pour southward, something between four and six million hawks and vultures in all.”

I want to go. I want to go so badly to this strip of land along the Gulf of Mexico centered on the city of Veracruz. There are places near Denver where birders go to watch the hawk migration (Dinosaur Ridge, for example), but I don’t think anyone has reported millions of raptors flying past Denver. There are so many of them going through the Centro de Veracruz (the name of the Important Bird Area) because it’s the logical way for them to get to their wintering grounds in Central and South America. And there are lots of trees to roost in at night—or there used to be.

The article details Audubon’s and ProNatura Veracruz’s efforts to convince farmers to preserve forest along the coast. It’s traditional for farmers to run cattle and grow sugarcane in the area, but the recent drought has made those businesses less profitable. Some locals have decided that restoring the forest with government help and then letting people hunt on their land may be better choices.

The article also briefly mentions that uncertain prospects in the area are driving human migration to the United States. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could find a way to pay those young men and women to stay in Veracruz state and restore the land?

How is this restoration?

More birding = more restoration, in my book.

Did you know that oceangoing predators sometimes rip off sea turtle flippers? And that there’s an organization on South Padre Island, Texas, that cares for such injured animals?
It’s called Sea Turtle, Inc., and it’s located next to the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center, as well as the Convention Center. This particular turtle is an Atlantic green turtle, but Sea Turtle had several species of turtles that live in the Gulf of Mexico, including the rarest, Kemp’s Ridley.

Here’s a turtle you should never, ever, try to pet: a loggerhead sea turtle, named for its large head. That jaw packs 1,000 pounds of force. He kept rising to the surface of the water and then sinking. Perhaps his behavior was caused by confinement, but I couldn’t help thinking he was trying to get me to stick my hand close to his snout. He didn’t need to breathe that often; loggerheads can wait 8 hours between breaths. Notice his blue eyes? This is the only blue-eyed loggerhead turtle in captivity. Not only is he unreleasable into the wild, but he kept eating all the fish in the zoo exhibit where he was placed. So the zoo sent him back to Sea Turtle.

Turtles are hungry creatures. They will eat just about anything, including all the plastic that keeps blowing into our oceans. The largest turtle species, the leatherback, reaches 8 feet long. Here’s Todd in a leatherback silhouette.And here’s one of the jellyfish it might eat. This one, which I found up the beach from the end of the road on South Padre, may be a man of war.

I felt very lucky after reading an article in Ms. magazine about women and the various movements to change food production and consumption in the United States. I live in Denver, and there are so many women making good things happen: Jennifer Jasinski and Beth Gruitch at Rioja and two other restaurants; Elisa Wiggins at Panzano; Dana Miller of Transition Colorado; Ann, who sold me produce from New Moon Farms near Boulder; Lisa Rogers of Feed Denver Urban Farms and Markets; Christie Isenberg of Tiri’s garden in downtown Denver …

The article complained that men like Michael Pollan (Omnivore’s Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) get all the press for promoting sustainable food. I’m not sure if I believe that, but the article did list lots of women I’ve never heard of (I’ve heard of Alice Walters and her New American Cuisine and of Sustainable South Bronx). So here’s a list for you to peruse.

Organizations

Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture

Buy Fresh Buy Local, Jessica Greenblatt Seeley (I couldn’t find her name on the Food Routes website linked to here, but I did find her name on the Farmer Jane website)

DC Urban Gardeners, Susan Harris, cofounder

Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (its urban community farm is managed by Marilyn Barber)

Food Not Lawns International, Heather C. Flores

Food Literacy Project, advised by Mollie Katzen (Moosewood restaurant) and run by Dara Olmstead

Frieda’s, a specialty produce company started by Frieda Caplan

Organización de Líderes Campesinas (Women Farmworker Leaders)

Women, Food, and Agriculture Network

Women’s Agricultural Network

Books

Diet for a Small Planet, Frances Moore Lappé

Farmer Jane: Women Changing the Way We Eat, by Temra Costa

Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health, by Marion Nestle

Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society, by A. Breeze Harper

Source: “The Feminist Food Revolution,” Jennifer Cognard-Black, Ms., summer 2010

Yes! magazine’s summer 2010 issue focused on water, and my favorite article therein described the ongoing restoration of the Feather River watershed in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. Planned and carried out by ranchers, timber barons, fisherpeople, and government officials, it is aimed at raising the quality and quantity of the water that ends up in the Sacramento Valley and San Francisco Bay. According to the article,

[restoring] these mountain meadows may be a first step in preserving both the environment and the economy. Restoring them helps revitalize the watershed and wildlife, and it also helps sustain the downstream farms, ranches, towns, and cities that depend on alpine water.

Water, after all, delivers most of the effects of global warming … Now, as climate change is altering historic snowfall patterns, land managers are turning to meadows to help reduce the effects of a warming planet.

How Is This Restoration?

So what do land managers do to these meadows? Much the same thing that Wildlands Restoration Volunteers did to Carnage Canyon near Boulder, Colorado. WRV hired a backhoe operator to regrade the area along Left Hand Creek, which had been degraded by four-wheel-drive traffic, and to fill in gullies caused by erosion. Then I and many, many other volunteers showed up on at least 10 days over a period of years and built check dams to redirect water flow to reduce erosion, seeded bare areas and covered them with mulch or erosion matting (if they were steep), dug up small trees and shrubs and replanted them, and in general did everything we could to help native plant communities recover on their own.

What does restoring the Feather River watershed do for California farmers?

According to the article, “Over the last century … late spring runoff has declined 25 percent.” Why? Because the snow is melting sooner and filling the rivers earlier. Why is that bad for farmers? Because just as temperatures rise in late spring, less water is available for crops.

How can restoration of meadows help? Restored meadows store water, cleanse it, and release it more slowly.

Twenty-five years of restoration along the Feather River have convinced the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the US Forest Service to expand the project to other parts of the Sierra, possibly restoring up to 20,000 acres a year through 2014.

The Sierra projects are unique among large-scale water restoration efforts in the United States because of their potential to increase the amount of water available in a river system.

Note the word “potential.” There’s debate as to whether restoring mountain meadows can actually produce more water; some scientists think restored meadows will produce more vegetation that will use up the extra water. But certainly water that’s flowing through a meadow instead of down a packed-dirt gully will be cleaner, which helps cities save on water treatment costs.

Why do I love this so much?

Because in this case, increasing beauty has an economic effect.

Source: “Restoring the Wild: Why More Water for Wildlife Means More Water for People,” Jane Braxton Little, Yes! magazine, summer 2010

Actually, this is not a post about sewage. It’s a post about turning trash into energy, as in Back to the Future III, when Doc comes back and starts dumpster diving to power his spaceship.

As in biorefineries.

Some were built in California decades ago, but now the news is about biorefineries in Canada (Edmonton) and Europe.

Here’s what I want to know.

Is anyone out there taking noxious weeds and turning them into biofuel?

Now THAT would create an economy that restores…or at least one that weeds.

Sources: “Greenest State Behind the Waste-to-Energy Race,” Noaki Schwartz, Associated Press, September 5, 2010; “Weekly Greens—Sept. 3,” Biofriendly Blog: see number 4