Mapping Invasives for Better Management

Jane Maloney, SVT's Land Steward, has devised a new protocol for mapping and documenting the invasive plants on our conservation lands. The protocol mimics a methodology used by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) for classifying the plant cover on a property, and it should help SVT staff and volunteers target our removal efforts and more accurately track our progress.

With the new protocol, staff and volunteers use GPS units, compasses, and measuring tapes to mark a 30m-by-30m grid on a property and then tally how many plants of various invasive species we find in the grid. Once we finish assessing a grid, we move on to create another grid, and another, and another, until the property is fully assessed. This methodical system creates a clear map of each property, shows where invasive plants have gained a foothold, tracks the types of invasives that are present, and indicates which invasives are dominant. In the past, SVT staff and volunteers used a simpler mapping method that involved walking a property and estimating the number of plants and the extent of their spread.

While the new protocol relies on some qualitative assessments, it provides much more accurate data than the old system. Jane has already used it to map part of Wolbach Farm, and we are confident enough in the results that we have incorporated them into our management plan for the property.

Such detailed mapping takes a long time to complete, so we are currently focused on finishing the maps of Wolbach Farm as well as Cowassock Woods in Framingham--two properties where we do a lot of invasives management. Once these maps are complete, we can apply the protocol to other SVT-owned lands.

SVT's Stewardship staff are beginning to train volunteers to use the protocol (we held our first training session at Cowassock Woods in early May). In the coming year, we plan to recruit additional volunteers to map more of our conservation lands, and we will share the protocol with our partners in CISMA so they can adapt it for use throughout the region.