On National Trails Day, Make the Most of Your Hike

Asheville, N.C. (May 22, 2008) —  The Appalachian Trail Conservancy, Western North Carolina Alliance and Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere (SAMAB) are partnering with land managing agencies to identify and control exotic-invasive plants.  Volunteers are needed to hike the Appalachian Trail (A.T.) on a more meaningful kind of hike: one that will be protecting its special resources. 

Saturday, June 7th is National Trails Day and a chance to celebrate trails and our unique natural resources by volunteering on the Appalachian Trail near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Volunteers will have an opportunity to learn how to identify 12 species of concern, information they can then take home to practice in their own yards, as good neighbors.  The group will then be equipped with GPS units to use on a tracking hike, and will be asked to monitor these exotic plants along the A.T.  Exotic invasive plants displace and out-compete native flora for space, sunlight, water, and nutrients, causing a decline in biodiversity. The findings from the monitoring hike will provide land managers data needed to begin their efforts in controlling these plants.

The volunteer hikers will also learn about an important resource on the web, called EDDMaps, an Early Detection and Distribution Mapping System. This site allows citizen-scientists to input plant data, from any location, onto the web source.  The collection of this data allows range distribution to be accounted for, and allow a quick response to any new exotic invasive plants that come into North Carolina.   It also allows land managers to track occurrences to prioritize their management efforts.

The partners of this program are moving forward with making focused areas around the A.T. “Cooperative Management Areas”.  The more partners that work together to combat these plants the more success will be seen.  The intent of having these Cooperative Management Areas is to integrate management resources across jurisdictional boundaries to benefit all partners as well as leverage additional resources.

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy has a new publication on its website about the MEGA Transect Program.  The Trail’s north-south alignment across 14 eastern states represents a cross-section of these eastern states and offers a perfect setting for collecting relevant and scientifically valid data on the health of the landscape and species it fosters. The inventory and monitoring of exotic invasive plants is one of the health indicators for the A.T. You can view the MEGA Transect report at www.appalachiantrail.org/megatransect.

If you are interested in celebrating National Trails Day by participating in the workshop and hike on June 7th, please contact Julie Judkins for registration at jjudkins@appalachiantrail.org.  Seven other workshops and monitoring hikes are planned for the year and can be found on the Appalachian Trail website at www.appalachiantrail.org/southernworkshops.

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy is a volunteer-based, private, nonprofit organization dedicated for more than 80 years to the conservation of the 2,174-mile Appalachian Trail, so that it will forever remain a simple footpath, within a protected greenway, along the Appalachian Mountains from Georgia to Maine.

The Western North Carolina Alliance is a grassroots organization which aims to promote a sense of stewardship and caring for the natural environment. The WNC Alliance's primary goal is to protect and to preserve our natural land, water and air resources through education and public participation in policy decisions at all levels of business and government.

The Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere (SAMAB) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to foster a harmonious relationship between people and the Southern Appalachian environment by promoting the environmental health and stewardship of natural, economic, and cultural resources in the Southern Appalachians. It encourages community-based solutions to critical regional issues through cooperation among partners, information gathering and sharing, integrated assessments, and demonstration projects.