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CARCD Call for Presenters
Building on the tremendous success of last year’s conference, California Association of Resource Conservation Districts is soliciting abstracts for presentations, special sessions, and poster papers for its 2013 CARCD Annual Meeting and Conference:
“The Great Balancing Act: Meeting Rural and Urban Resource Needs”
Given the growing demands of an increasing population, California’s resources are at a tipping point. The essentials needed to sustain life and livelihood (clean water, clean air, food, fiber, land) are under increasing pressure. By working with each other, we can bring balance to these growing and growingly contentious problems. By creating a framework that is scientifically sound and systematic, we can find quantifiable, practical solutions that are in balance with the people, the land and the legacy that is California. We can recognize ourselves as the hand that grows the food, and the hand that eats it.
We invite you to participate in this important conversation.
The conference will be held at the Napa Valley Marriot Hotel and Spa from November 13th through the 16th. We are seeking 15-45 minute presentations of interest to RCDs and partners.
Please submit an abstract by June 25, 2013. Abstracts should be between 100-250 words in length, submitted in MS Word format and include your full name, affiliation, a daytime telephone number/cell phone number, an email address and a length of time requested for the presentation.
Send your submission to emily-sutherland@carcd.org with the subject line: 2013 Annual Presenters
Presentation Formats:
Individual Session (One presentation, 15-45 min.): Individual presentations on conservation topics. We will attempt to group like presentations together into a session.
Group Session (3-4 presentations, 15 min. ea.): This is the perfect opportunity for partnering groups and/or individuals within one agency or RCD to design your own session and presenters. Please be specific about each person’s topic area and give an overview of the session in your abstract.
If you have any questions, please contact CARCD:
801 K Street, 18th Floor
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 457-7934 [FAX]
New Funding Opportunity
From Katherine Evatt:
Hemlock Landscape Restoration Project Tour on May 30th
The Calaveras Ranger District will be hosting a field trip to our Hemlock Landscape Restoration project on Thursday, May 30th.
We will meet at the Calaveras Ranger District at 09:00 am. The field tour will take most of the day, perhaps ending around 15:00.
What to Bring:
- Brown Bag Lunch
- Water
- Hiking boots
- Sunscreen
- Bug Repellent
- Good Spirits
Please contact Kendal Young at the Calaveras Ranger District if you have any questions. The phone system at the District is having difficulties (not accepting all incoming calls), so email is probably our best communication method.
Items of Interest for May 15th Meeting
There have been a couple submittals for blog posting which are listed below:
STUDY: Financing Woody Biomass Clusters: Barriers, Opportunities and Potential Models for the Western U.S.
WEBINAR: Effectiveness and longevity of fuel treatments in coniferous forests across California
Materials for Review in Advance of May 15th Meeting
Callecat Ecological Restoration: Implement restoration actions to protect, increase, and perpetuate old forests and wildlife habitat; reduce the threat to communities from wildfires; reintroduce fire into fire-adpated ecosystems; reduce the degradation of watersheds and aquatic resources; and, provide employment and commodities to the local community; Amador Ranger District
Callecat Ecological Restoration Project Submission Form 2013
Forest Creek Roadwork/Watershed Improvments: Repair hydrologically connected segments of Forest Service Road 7N30, above Forest Creek; Calaveras Ranger District
Forest Creek Roadwork_Cornerstone Project Submission Form 2013
Mokelumne River Crossing Watershed Improvement: Removal of large culvert and associated fill material at crossing the South Fork of the Mokelumne River on Forest Road 6N64; Calaveras Ranger District
Mokelumne crossing Removal_Cornerstone Project Submission Form 2013
San Domingo Trail Maintenance: Perform required trail maintenance to enhance the approach to and departure from San Domingo Creek; Calaveras Ranger District
San Domingo Maintenance_Cornerstone Project Submission Form 2013
The planning committee is suggesting ACCG concurrence with the planning and/or implementation of these Cornerstone projects. The planning committee will also circulate a Letter of Support for the Ramsey Burn Forest Salvage project.
Ramsey Burn Forest Salvage – Concurrence with Draft Decision Memo: Letter of Support for the Proposed Action/ Draft Decision Memo; Calaveras Ranger District
ACCG Meeting on May 15th in West Point
The next full ACCG meeting will take place next Wednesday, May 15th. The meeting will begin at 9:30am at the West Point Veterans Hall located on the corner of Highway 26 and Bald Mountain Road in West Point, CA.
The agenda for Wednesday’s meeting is attached. Also attached is an RFP from the National Forest Foundation which will be discussed as part of the meeting.
Two National Forest Foundation Workshops Next Week
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Desired Conditions? CFLRP Five Year Reporting
Monday, May 13, 2013 | 2:00-4:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
Who’s afraid of the big bad desired conditions? Not us! You’re invited to join the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program Monitoring Network and National Forest Foundation in this upcoming webinar on developing desired conditions and ecological and indicators.
Here’s why this is important: In order to fulfill the requirements of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, which established the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration (CFLR) program, the USDA Forest Service must submit a 5-year report to Congress that assesses whether, and to what extent, the program is fulfilling its purposes. In 2011, the National Forest Foundation facilitated a meeting with Forest Service staff and agency partners to develop a suite of national indicators for the 5-year report. The result of this meeting was five draft indicators covering the purposes of the Act, including one covering ecological impacts.
Guidance for the ecological indicator, which will assess the ecological outcomes of the CFLRP projects, was released by Deputy Chief Leslie Weldon in 2012. As part of the guidance, project collaboratives must develop desired conditions that are specific to their collaborative group and the landscape and they are working on. This webinar will highlight three CFLR projects where collaborative members have been hard at work developing desired conditions and monitoring indicators to address the national indicators for wildlife, fire, and invasive species. Participants will hear about the design and development process, and see examples, from representatives of the Dinkey Landscape Restoration Project, Uncompahgre Plateau Project, and Selway-Middle Fork Clearwater Project. There will be time to delve into the details, ask questions, and share experiences.
Click here to RSVP for this peer learning session on CFLRP Five Year Reporting
Evaluation and Adaptation in Collaborative Resource Management – A New Sourcebook
Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 | 12:00 p.m.- 2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
We hope you can join us for a discussion about a newly-published sourcebook, Closing the Feedback Loop: Evaluation and Adaptation in Collaborative Resource Management. The sourcebook explores strategies and tools that collaborative groups use to systematically evaluate their work and adapt plans and management actions based on what they have learned. Presenters will share examples from the field, and we will discuss process tools from nine rapid assessments that are described in the sourcebook. This session builds on a previous peer learning session (May 4, 2012), held during the sourcebook’s development. We invite you to join the discussion, share other examples and discuss opportunities for integrating shared learning, systematic evaluation, and adaptive change into collaborative resource management.
The sourcebook was developed by Ann Moote in coordination with a project team of the following organizations: Ecological Restoration Institute, Forest Guild, National Forest Foundation, USFS Ecosystem Services and National Partnership Office, Watershed Research and Training Center, and Sustainable Northwest.
Click here to RSVP for the upcoming session on Evaluation and Adaptation
National Forest Foundation Announces 2013 California Capacity-Building Grant Opportunity
In partnership with the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region, the National Forest Foundation is pleased to announce a new funding program to benefit the National Forests of California and the communities that depend on them.
The Community Capacity and Land Stewardship (CCLS) grant program will provide grants of $5,000 to $24,000 to enable community-based organizations and collaborative groups to increase their capacity to facilitate and/or implement watershed or landscape-level restoration projects. Ancillary goals of the program are to build capacity to help meet other objectives associated with the creation of living-wage jobs that contribute to the economic sustainability of communities. Grants will be awarded for a period of one year.
Work may take place on or off of California National Forests Lands, but there must be a clear, direct benefit to their watersheds. Organizations are not required to match CCLS award funds, but are encouraged to leverage additional private and local, state, or governmental resources to show broad support for the project.
Proposals are due on or before July 1, 2013 and must be received hard-copy.
For more information, visit http://nationalforests.org/conserve/grantprograms/capacitybuilding/ccls
Ramsey Project Tour on Wednesday
Attached is the agenda for our May 8th, Planning Workgroup Meeting.
ACCG Planning Committee Meeting May 8, 2013 Agenda
The meeting will start at 09:00 AM at the Calaveras Ranger District in Hathaway Pines, and progress to our Ramsey Fire Salvage project area.
For the field trip, please bring the following:
- Brown Bag Lunch
- Water
- Hiking boots
- Sunscreen
- Bug Repellent
- Good Spirits
Please contact Kendal Young at the Calaveras Ranger District with questions.
USFWS Proposing New ESA Protections and Critical Habitat Designations
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is proposing to list the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog and the northern distinct population segment of the mountain yellow-legged frog as endangered and the Yosemite toad as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The Service is also proposing to designate critical habitat for these three amphibian species in California: 1,105,400 acres across 16 counties for the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog, 221,498 acres across two counties for the mountain yellow-legged frog, and 750,926 acres across seven counties for the Yosemite toad.
With overlapping areas, the total proposed critical habitat for the three amphibians is 1,831,820 acres. Most of the proposed critical habitat is on federal lands.
http://www.fws.gov/sacramento/outreach/2013/04-24/outreach_newsroom_2013-4-24.htm
Amador - Calaveras Consensus Group 