Share: 

Reforestation to combat effects of urbanization and pollution

Local farms and forests are rapidly being replaced by developments
August 16, 2018

The Delaware Center for the Inland Bays’ new Watershed Reforestation Plan identifies and envisions water-quality improvement projects that benefit the Inland Bays and create valuable partnerships in conservation efforts.

In recent years, land use has changed dramatically for the Inland Bays’ watershed, an area of land covering most of eastern Sussex County that drains into the Inland Bays. Farms and forests are rapidly being replaced by developments, which grew by 25 square miles from 1992 to 2012.

“We need to address these water-quality issues in a strategic and cost-effective manner,” said Michelle Schmidt, CIB watershed coordinator. “This new Watershed Reforestation Plan is our guide for this endeavor and has helped us to identify reforestation sites, approach landowners, and build valuable partnerships that help us to achieve mutual goals.”

Over the past five years, the center has worked hard to implement several reforestation projects to mitigate problems, and to achieve the goals of the center’s 2012 Comprehensive Conservation Management Plan Addendum and 2008 Pollution Control Strategy, which has an ambitious goal of creating 3,246 acres of riparian forested buffer.

In 2015, the CIB partnered with the DNREC Division of Fish and Wildlife to reforest 70 acres of former agricultural land at the Marion R. Okie Preserve at Poplar Thicket. The following year, the center partnered with the Nature Conservancy to reforest 22 acres of the 557-acre Bullseye-Ferry Landing Preserve on Indian River. 

Finally, over the course of four years beginning in 2014, the Angola Neck Reforestation Project saw the planting of nearly 38 acres of state-owned and -managed agricultural lands in Angola Neck. This project created a forested corridor from Love Creek into other wetland areas located farther inland in order to enhance water quality and wildlife habitat for songbirds like yellow-breasted chat, northern parula and American redstart.

The center initiated the development of a Watershed Reforestation Plan in 2016. This plan identifies and conceptualizes priority cropland reforestation projects that are the most cost-effective measures for water-quality improvements and result in the highest-quality conservation improvements. A Watershed Reforestation Model was developed to identify and rank all agricultural parcels in the Inland Bays watershed as candidates for reforestation or other best management practices based on specific criteria, including the proximity to first-order streams and already protected areas.

Currently, the center is reaching out to landowners of the top-ranking project sites to gauge interest and create partnerships. From there, reforestation concept designs will be developed and used, turning to the Reforestation Management Plan as a guide.

The Delaware Center for the Inland Bays is a nonprofit organization established in 1994, one of 28 National Estuary Programs. With its many partners, the CIB works to preserve, protect and restore Delaware’s Inland Bays, the water that flows into them and the watershed around them. For  more information go to www.inlandbays.org.

 

 

Subscribe to the CapeGazette.com Daily Newsletter