Thanks to a matching grant from the National Forest Foundation (NFF), Wild South initiated an inventory of non-native invasive plant species (NNIPS) in the interior of the 26,000 acre Sipsey Wilderness in the Bankhead National Forest.  Field work began in May, 2009, and a picture of NNIPS populations and their impact on the forest community in the Wilderness has emerged.

Background

Wilderness areas comprise nearly 20% of the land area in the National Forest system.  In response to a 2002 U.S. Forest Service (USFS) assessment of critical tasks of wilderness stewardship, then Forest Service Chief, Dale Bosworth, implemented a 10-year Wilderness Stewardship Challenge, calling for all wilderness areas to meet baseline management standards in 10 stewardship elements by 2014, the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, which established the first formal wilderness areas.

The Sipsey Wilderness in the Bankhead National Forest is one of the largest National Forest wilderness areas east of the Mississippi River.  One of the stewardship elements in which the Sipsey does not meet minimum management standards is in the prevention and control of NNIPS, infestations of which can be a very real threat to native forest communities.  Som...