Broadmoor: the view of Indian Brook from the main bridge. |
Table of Contents:
Keywords: Ecological Management Plan, Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary, Massachusetts Audubon Society, Management Units
Protecting land is the first step in conservation, but not the last. Preserving, restoring, and enhancing habitat for native plants and animals requires planning and management.
For example, without management, many old fields become infested with invasive species such as multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora), which crowds out native plants. If the desired species are native grassland birds, the fields will need to support native grasses and plant associations favored by the birds. Invasive trees and shrubs may need to be removed, and a schedule of mowing implemented.
No land management entity has all the resources it needs for planning, implementing and evaluating ecological management. With a few key professionals, volunteers can fill in the gaps if projects are divided into manageable parts and reasonable time frames. The case history at Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary of the Massachusetts Audubon Society is presented as a model to help other land managers "get it done" with the resources at hand.
Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary is 624 acres of land owned by the Massachusetts Audubon Society with 164 additional acres under conservation restriction along the Charles River in Natick and Sherborn, Massachusetts. Indian Brook runs through the property, forming more than 200 acres of marsh surrounded by oak/pine upland punctuated by vernal pools and a 22-acre kettle hole pond.
Ecological Management Plan of 1989: In 1989, scientific staff from the parent organization, Massachusetts Audubon, produced a plan for managing the native biological diversity and ecological integrity of natural communities on the sanctuary. The plan was comprehensive, particularly with respect to documenting biodiversity, but management recommendations seemed daunting to implement with existing resources. Much of the problem was in the format. The plan included 54 management units numbered and grouped by habitat type. For example, the text read "Open Areas Management (Units 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 22, 31, 39, 40, 41, 44, 52)." Reading the plan required flipping back and forth between narrative and map. "Concerns and Recommendations" were in the narrative for each unit and not always clearly defined or easy to identify. Priorities for action were summarized, but it was unclear how actions would be accomplished because funding, responsibility, and timelines were unspecified.
Update 2000-2001: The Ecological Management/Land Protection Committee of Broadmoor’s Advisory Board examined the 1989 plan and realized that formatting the plan into project-sized elements and defining management goals more clearly would allow easier implementation. Also, identifying the personnel needed to implement the projects was crucial to the plan.
To be successful, developing an ecological management plan requires the following key players and elements:
If an organization does not have staff members who can fill the positions listed above, any of the key players can be hired or recruited as volunteers to assist with the project. For continuity, it is helpful if regular paid staff perform at least one of the roles. In addition to personnel, another crucial element in any successful ecological management plan is financial management.
Funding
Aerial photograph examination with ground truthing allows division of property into units of similar habitat. To classify each habitat type, one should follow a standard definition for the description of community types such as the Classification of Natural Communities of Massachusetts, Patricia C. Swain and Jennifer B. Kearsley, Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, Westborough, MA, July 2000 (DRAFT), which has references to synonymous habitats in other states. Using a published definition will allow delineation of community units that cross ownership boundaries and will aid comparison of habitat types, management recommendations, and results within the sanctuary.
Management units should be defined using references that can be relocated in the future, such as concrete blocks, drill holes in rocks, stone walls, trails, or roads. Avoid using limits of forest, which can be difficult to locate and may change with time. Keep the units simple, and as few as possible because maintaining data on hundreds of units is daunting. The management units are key because once they are identified; they are the basis for planning, implementing, and evaluating management activities. (See Appendix I: Ecological Management Unit Survey Form)
Ground truthing is accomplished by comparing and contrasting the aerial photos with ground surveys. Aerial photos may show apparent boundaries in forest types, for example, that are not visible on the ground. Work back and forth between the photos and the field. Management decisions may result in consolidating smaller units into larger ones. An example is the abandoned orchard at Broadmoor, which is being managed as a "savannah" type habitat. When an adjacent field was abandoned as a study site by meadow vole researchers, that field was added to the abandoned orchard to make one 18-acre unit.
Ecologist: Dr. Lisa Standley, a member of the Broadmoor Advisory Board, initiated the update of the ecological management plan with monthly field trips to management units. The goal was to visit all units and complete the plan update within a year. Most of the work was completed within the year. The exception was wetlands, which will be completed in Fall 2001. Participants included sanctuary staff and volunteers who recorded plant species and animal observations and quantified invasive plants in each unit. (See Appendix II: Invasive Plant Survey Form). The walks also provided an opportunity to educate volunteers and Board members and involve them directly in Sanctuary management. The objective was not an in-depth biodiversity survey, but a fairly rapid walk-through. (Note: the earlier 1989 plan made this easier than starting from scratch.) Dr. Standley entered the findings into the appropriate location on the original plan of 1989 and annotated all changes. The updated plan generated a list of recommendations, and a table of recommended actions follows the update in the text.
The format of the new plan allows for easy comparison of changes and for extraction of recommendations by Broadmoor's Advisory Committee, director, and staff. The ability to pull out individual recommendations gives us flexibility in how we implement specific ecological management actions, such as inclusion in annual property management plans or the development of protocols for volunteers or students. Presenting action items in a table allows easy insertion of the date of completion.
Staff Scientists: Tom Rawinski and Lou Wagner, MAS regional scientists, met with the Broadmoor team to approve methodology that was consistent with organizational goals of the Massachusetts Audubon Society and with the structure of ecological management plans at other MAS sanctuaries. For an organization such as MAS with separate field sites, consistent methodology is vital to coordinate planning, implement actions, and compare results.
Map and GIS Specialist: Bill Giezentanner, a specialist in mapping, volunteered to train other volunteers using the Broadmoor project. This was efficient, as volunteers learned a new skill while they provided the hours of work necessary to produce management unit maps for the sanctuary. The specialist was able to contribute his time and expertise to train other people rather than to perform the time-consuming detail work alone. At the time, Broadmoor did not have the capability to keep the map data on local computers, so the volunteer kept the maps -- an additional plus for the sanctuary.
Property Manager: Dividing the action recommendations into parts that can be accomplished in just a few days is key to successful implementation of an ecological management plan where implementation personnel are limited. The large scale of the original plan overwhelmed the property manager, who had to try to fit the plan in with his regular responsibilities. From the current recommendations table, the property manager can extract tasks, such as rotary mowing, that are appropriate for him to fit into his annual work plan. Other actions, such as buckthorn pulling, can be developed as protocols for volunteer workdays.
Volunteers: Specific ecological management action items can be analyzed in order to develop work descriptions for volunteers. These descriptions specify requirements for experience, education, time commitment, tools, and abilities. Because volunteers can be better matched to the tasks, their time is well used.
Ecological Management Committee: The Advisory Board Committee is the sustaining force behind Broadmoor's plan. In another organizational structure, it might be called a Stewardship Committee. Although the composition of the committee changes, its charge, to oversee the implementation and update of the plan, guides the staff in setting annual goals.
The Management Plan identified invasive glossy buckthorn (Rhamnus frangula) in a white pine (Pinus strobus) forest as a habitat threat that needed action. Finding volunteers to pull buckthorn was not difficult because it can be satisfying to yank it up by the roots and results are immediate and visible. However, plans for pulling lead to questions. What level of buckthorn management is desirable and achievable? Practically, it was agreed that total eradication would probably be impossible. The next question became: what level of management will reduce and maintain the buckthorn at levels that do not impact the native habitat? This led to developing protocol for an experiment to measure the quantity of buckthorn in plots before and after removal. Seeking a high school senior project, a volunteer from Dana Hall School was delighted to do the job in June 2000. She set up quadrats along transects, counted every buckthorn plant within the quadrats, and measured and recorded their height.
Serendipitously, a local data storage company seeking a volunteer project for its company's annual meeting contacted Broadmoor. We suggested buckthorn removal. The company sent a team of 30 people who spent three hours pulling the plants from the white pine forest in summer of 2000.
The next step was to determine the effectiveness of the buckthorn pulling. In July 2001, an intern re-sampled the plots and described removal results. Large buckthorn plants had been removed successfully. However, the plots contained many more tiny plants that had sprouted recently. These results raised new questions about our method of buckthorn management. For example, does buckthorn pulling result in new seedlings because it opens the soil and stimulates seed sprout? Additional experiments will be conducted. Pursuing questions that arise from management actions will result in the most effective methods for producing desired results. Sharing results with other land managers will help all of us use our resources most efficiently.
At Broadmoor, the Ecological Management plan is a dynamic document. It is used in annual planning for management, for the development of educational programs, and is flexible enough to link with any changes in direction or policy by the parent organization (MAS). Units can be revisited as needed and the plan can be updated to reflect annual activities. Units undergoing intensive management, such as removal of invasive species, may be revisited more frequently. As research projects or outside sources add to knowledge of management techniques, the new information can be incorporated in revisions.
The original 1989 Ecological Management plan for Broadmoor sat on the shelf because it looked impossible to implement without major staff additions or funding for consultants. The current approach makes ecological management achievable by dividing the property into larger units, identifying specific actions, and using a variety of changing resources. Town conservation land, private property, and other land management entities can do the same.
Broadmoor attracts more than 20,000 visitors annually who affect the sanctuary's habitats by their presence and activities. During the inventory phase of the planning process, human impacts became apparent. A vernal pool located near the nature center was often visited by students on school field trips and by participants in vernal pool workshops. Over time, they compacted the soil at the pool's edge. The marsh along Indian Brook is the focus of programs for all ages, but there were few locations where program participants could get close enough to observe and explore the marsh and its inhabitants without impacting the edges.
Looking at the property from an ecological management perspective led to improvements that benefit habitats and humans alike. Installation of a vernal pool overlook allows humans access to the pool on a ramped, 60 foot long dock that crosses from the trail to the middle of the pool. Now, visitors can observe the vernal pool and its inhabitants without damage to the edge. Along Indian Brook, a boardwalk was constructed through 500 feet of the marsh, carefully located to avoid shading vegetation, and using galvanized steel helical pier supports to minimize damage from construction. These structures satisfy human curiosity for direct experience with nature and allow for educational programming that simultaneously demonstrates good stewardship of Broadmoor's habitats.
The Geographic Information System maps for the Broadmoor Ecological Management Plan were developed from orthophotos provided by MassGIS (http://www.state.ma.us/mgis/). Several earlier hand drawn maps were also used to develop information for GIS layers on trails and boundaries. The 1989 managements units were also added as a layer and their boundaries were adjusted to the orthophoto. These management unit boundaries were then checked in the field and further adjusted as necessary. Other useful GIS layers included "Protected and Recreational Open Space," "Orthophoto Wetlands," Orthophoto Streams," and "Elevation Contours". MassGIS and other state GIS offices maintain websites that allow access to these layers. There are also a variety of other sites that provide map information that may help with your project, (eg. MapQuest (www.mapquest.com) and TopoZone (www.topozone.com). Two sample maps are included below.
Habitat map on Orthophoto base
Management Units on Orthophoto Base
