Archive for November, 2009

Decommissioning Illegal Roads

The sun breaks over desert mountains to the east of town. In the University of Nevada, Reno’s north parking lot, a crowd gathers. Gradually, an oblong circle forms around a few men dressed in blue jeans and flip-flops. Moments pass and the crowd grows quiet. One of the men pulls a crumpled slip of paper from his pocket, then recites a line made famous by Edward Abbey: “There are no vacant lots in nature.” With these words, the circle becomes a stream moving toward trucks and vans bulging with backpacks, hand tools, and water coolers. Watching these young men and women climb into the vehicles, you sense that this diverse group hasn’t congregated so early to go sightseeing. The tools and packs, the scuffed work boots and Carhartts, the dawn departure, all hint at hard, physical work and long hours. As trucks and vans pull out of the lot the men wave to the crews that form the backbone of the Great Basin Institute, an eleven-year old environmental conservation organization based at UNR.

Most of these 10-12-member crews include small groups of international volunteers, hailing from around the globe. It’s not their dirt-brown tees and stained Carhartts—the standard uniform of conservation crews everywhere—that give them away. But, listen in and you’ll hear a distinct accent. Maybe it’s British. Maybe it’s German or Korean, or Spanish or Irish. Members of the International Conservation Volunteer Exchange (ICVE), most of these foreign volunteers spend seven to fourteen weeks in Nevada, living in dorm rooms or a nondescript brick house along Virginia Street, and spike camping in the wilderness they’re here to conserve. They’ll work in Nevada’s most beautiful and, in some instances, isolated places. Since 2004, the ICVE has hosted over 500 alumni from 44 countries. In the summer of 2009, alone, the program hosted 105 volunteers from 17 countries. Together, they contributed more than 25,300 volunteer hours to Nevada’s wild lands.

Leaving a project site near Hickison Summit

From May through August, ICVE members teamed up with 175 AmeriCorps members from around the United States, rounding out the Nevada Conservation Corps (NCC). The workhorses of the Institute, each year NCC members contribute thousands of hours of skilled labor to protect environmentally sensitive areas throughout the American West. The NCC serves in the Lake Tahoe Basin, the Truckee River watershed, at Sand Mountain near Fallon, at Hickison Summit near Austin, and the Jarbidge Wilderness near the Idaho border. This past summer, alone, the NCC built or maintained 197 miles of wilderness trails, restored 15 miles of rivers, streams, beaches, and fish habitats, removed hazardous fuels from 653 acres of public land, and removed invasive plant species from 3,947 acres throughout Nevada.

While all Nevada Conservation Corps members invest a significant amount of time and energy to serve, ICVE members sacrifice more than just sweat and regular showers to participate in the program. In addition to paying for the long, two-way flight, international volunteers forfeit many everyday luxuries, such as normal beds to sleep in, privacy, and Starbucks, all to work tirelessly on Nevada’s public lands. ICVE members typically spend four to eight days at a time “spiking” in the Nevada wilderness—living with their crews in tents, cooking group meals using a propane stove on a makeshift table, and abiding by “Leave No Trace” practices (more often than not, toilets are nonexistent in the field).

Why, you might ask, would anyone voluntarily commit to a program that demands so many long days and material sacrifices? Time and again ICVE volunteers respond to this question, as if on cue, with the words, “You form new friendships,” and “It’s the experience of a lifetime.” While nobody denies the work is hard—very hard—few among the program’s 500 plus international volunteers, to date, would trade the sweat and blisters earned in the field for any other experience. As current ICVE member Darrell Rice, from England, puts it, “Being part of the Nevada Conservation Corps and ICVE has been one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life.  From the moment I became an international volunteer and right up to the present, I’ve met many new friends, seen some amazing places, and have grown as a person.”  Darrell joined the ICVE back in 2007 and is now a crew supervisor in his third term with ICVE, this time around on a year-long internship. Darrell adds, “I would recommend the NCC and ICVE programs to anyone who wants to be part of something bigger than themselves. They will take away an experience they will truly never forget.”

This year also marked the inaugural year of ICVE-Mexico, inspired by the Great Basin Institute’s leadership of restoration and research field courses near Manzanilla, on Mexico’s central Pacific coast. The ongoing restoration work explores the issues and problems of Mexico’s coastal environment. With support from the University of Nevada, Reno’s Office of International Students and Scholars, and the Universidad de Guadalajara, the ICVE brought sixteen marine biology students to Nevada on internships during the latter half of the 2009 field season. Ana Nafarrate, an intern and crew leader from Guadalajara, says her time here has been “exciting and very eye-opening.”  She adds, “Working in threatened places has been very rewarding.” By partnering with foreign universities, such as the Universidad de Guadalajara and University College Cork in Ireland, the ICVE hopes to expand the educational aspect of the program.

It’s now the end of October. The sun sets, slipping behind the crest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The same few men, still wearing flip-flops, bucking the chill in the air, stand in UNR’s northern parking lot awaiting crews due back from their final tour in the field. The light fades. Finally, a string of dust-covered trucks pulls into the lot. Crews in dirt-stained Carhartts pile out of vehicles and begin unloading backpacks and tools. After a long season in the field, the time has come for everyone to decompress.  NCC and ICVE members prepare to leave, one last time, the lot they’ve come to know so well. Watching faces, you can’t help but see the mixed emotions each and every person is trying to contain. You can read excitement—a chapter is closing and new journeys beckon, just over the horizon. But you can also see twinges of melancholy. This international family must now say their goodbyes. At length, they do. As the men wave “So long!” to groups of people drifting away, some in cars, others on foot, you’re certain of just one thing. Each person is leaving with memories of this life changing experience, memories that will last a lifetime.

Nevada Conservation Corps & ICVE, August 2009

In the summer’s intense Mojave heat six people strained their eyes against dust and brilliant sun, seeking signs of vegetation in tortoise territory. Walking for miles across the desert, they carried sampling frames, GPS units, and vital liters of water, all to assess the devastating effects of wildfires on the habitat of the threatened Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agassizii). Research Assistants for the Great Basin Institute, this team of explorers spent eight months in the wide open spaces of southern Lincoln County, Nevada, a region of mostly public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

When the 2005 wildfires swept through the northeastern Mojave Desert four years ago, an unprecedented 787,414 acres of protected and grazed land burned. Many species, some threatened like the desert tortoise, some introduced like cattle and sheep, were affected by the fires. Already scarce food and cover plants vanished. Several seasons following the fires, what was the condition of plant resources for desert tortoises in the burned habitat? As part of its mandate, the BLM rehabilitates degraded lands. An effective desert recovery management plan called for systematic data collection and assessment. Enter, stage right, GBI’s vegetation research team.

Orchestrating this complex data collection project took expertise, planning, and tenacity. GPS units in hand, the team zeroed in on all 81 sample sites chosen for study in burned, unburned, grazed and ungrazed areas. Next, they pounded stakes into the bajada—ground characterized by hard-packed gravel—to mark each and every site, some just meters off the road, others a mile’s walk or more. As summer temperatures ramped up, cresting 115 degrees, already remote sites seemed, like mirages, beyond reach. Still the team persevered. Measuring tapes were unfurled into huge rectangles. Plant numbers and species within each sample site were systematically recorded. Not far from the main rectangle, an even longer tape measure was extended. At ten meter intervals along this tape sampling frames were placed over plants, which were then carefully removed, weighed, and stowed for reweighing. Shrubs were also measured and counted, and the sparse cover they provided—or, more often, didn’t—was recorded as the gap between woody plants—or their charred remains—on data sheets. Yet, after taking all of these vegetation measurements at each sample site, the crew’s work had hardly begun.

The six spent hours entering data into spreadsheets, weighing dried plant matter, labeling and processing the photographs they’d taken at each site, and identifying “mystery” plants using classification keys. Quality control

2009 vegetation sampling crew: Steve Saletta, Helen Kurkjian, Kyle Doherty (left to right in back row), Steve Paris, Sedona Maniak, Lindsey Washkoviak (left to right in front row). Photo by Alicia Styles 2009

came next: each data sheet was checked against its digital counterpart; each photograph was scrutinized; each bag of forbs was weighed, and weighed again, for accuracy. And when all these steps were completed? Restocked with supplies, the team returned to the desert. In order to capture vegetation structure data three times during the desert tortoises’ activity season—spring to fall—the team repeated each step in this rigorous sampling process not once, but twice more.

After a long summer in the Mojave, an accurate and complete data set was delivered to the BLM by a satisfied and weary field crew.

During the 2009 season, the vegetation crew spotted and photographed eight desert tortoises, repaired 24 flat tires, witnessed the destruction of three shade structures by the Mojave wind, and extracted countless cholla spines from clothing, backpacks and bare skin. The six researchers emerged otherwise unscathed from a scorching field season in the Mojave Desert, awestruck by the desert tortoise’s persistence in this challenging landscape, and hopeful that their efforts will help the tortoise endure.

By Sedona Maniak, GBI RA – Crew Coordinator, September 2009