ECOLOGIAL RESTORATION
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AT CEDAR LAKE POINT BEACH (AND BEYOND)
Acres of wooded lots with clean, clear lakefront access: Priceless How much is the forested public land the Minneapolis Park Board is entrusted to protect worth? How much is it potentially worth if it were raised from its own assessment as being is substandard conditions to becoming improved, more vital, more welcoming to humans and wildlife? How much should be reasonably invested to bring the value of this asset closer to its potential? These are questions that keep ringing in my head as I have shifted my mindset for the time being about thinking about loss of life, loss of habitat, decline of species, and degradation of ecosystems and the connections between places that enable those ecosystems to function. If news about weeks of temperatures in Phoenix over 100-plus degrees, wildfires that destroyed a community in Maui, or a boat that capsized filled with climate induced disaster driven migrants can't catch enough public attention of what's going on with our climate change, I'm loosing hope that the public and our public servants are going to be open to an argument based on dying micro organisms and insects. There are actually state laws that require us to manage noxious weeds: 18.78 NOXIOUS WEEDS CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT.§ Subdivision 1. Generally A person owning land, a person occupying land, or a person responsible for the maintenance of public land must manage all noxious weeds, according to the noxious weed categories under section 18.771, on the land at a time and in a manner ordered by an inspector or county-designated employee. And then they created categories of noxious weeds: 18.771 NOXIOUS WEED CATEGORIES.(a) For purposes of designation under section 18.79, subdivision 13, noxious weed category means each of the following categories: (1) the prohibited-eradicate noxious weeds category; (2) the prohibited-control noxious weeds category; (3) the restricted noxious weeds category; (4) the specially regulated plants category; and (5) the county noxious weeds category. Moreover, the University of Minnesota nature resources department states, "Buckthorn is one of Minnesota’s most damaging invasive plants. Landowners should be concerned if buckthorn is present in their woodlands because it is an aggressive invasive plant that outcompetes native vegetation and degrades wildlife habitat." And, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) Noxious Weed Advisory Committee (NWAC) completes risk assessments for terrestrial plants. It lists 281 terrestrial invasive species in Minnesota. It assesses among a number of factors, each species. I created a spreadsheet to sort and whittle down this list based on the most damaging invasive plants in Minnesota based on their risk assessment ratings.
All told, Common Buckthorn is just one of three invasive species with such negative ratings among the 281 total invasive terrestrial plants. The other two are Amur Corktree and Bohemian Knotweed. Common Buckthorn is a priority problem. Where are the resource priorities aligned with solving the problem?So how much does it cost to solve the problem and where are the resources to reasonably invest in bringing public property to their potential value? Still working on find the working formulas and assumptions so we might be able to apply and/or facilitate the MPRB to apply for grants that address the problem. Volunteers cannot do it fast enough or cover enough territory. I've been working the 3-plus acres at Cedar Lake Point Beach for almost three years. Progress is certain, but I walk through the north side of the lake's woods, which I measure at about 43 acres, and wonder what it will take to save this area, from an economic/financial perspective as much as an ecological one. It's going to require more than weekend warriors and retired fanatics to make a real difference. It's taken three years to fully clear the Buckthorn from the eastern most tip of the forest at Cedar Lake Point Beach. For the first time in decades, beach goers can look into the woods and consider the potential wildlife that exists inside the woods. Before the clearing, the pathways to and from the beach from Cedar Lake Parkway was just a tunnel through unsavory thickets of a dying Buckthorn infested darkness.
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March 2024
AuthorI'm Steve Kotvis, volunteer Park Steward for the Minneapolis Cedar Lake Point Beach peninsula who has a newfound love of restoring this natural area and more. I'm learning as I go, and enjoy sharing that with those who have an interest. I'm also a photographer, so the photos in this blog are mine unless otherwise labeled. |