Thanks to a 2:1 matching grant from the National Forest Foundation (NFF), Wild South has 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 is beginning to emerge. 

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.  Some of these communities, such as the sandstone canyon and glade areas of the Sipsey, may include rare, threatened, or endangered species of plants. 

The Project 

Discussions between Wild South and Bankhead District staff revealed that budget and manpower constraints limited USFS inventory of NNIPS to roads around the wilderness boundary and at trailheads.  An inventory of the wilderness interior was an obvious need and seemed a good fit for the NFF’s Wilderness Stewardship Challenge matching grants program.  NFF is the official non-profit partner of the USFS and has been supporting Wild South’s conservation initiatives in the Bankhead since 2006.

In a grant proposal submitted to NFF earlier this year, Wild South proposed to conduct a walking survey of all marked and maintained trails and year-round streams in the Sipsey Wilderness and record all NNIPS populations within a reasonably observable corridor.  The grant was awarded, and since early May, Wild South staff members, interns and volunteers have been walking the trails and streams, collecting data with handheld GPS units, cameras, voice recorders and field survey forms.  All data is collected and digitized according to the USFS’s Data Recording Protocols for Invasive Species Management and stored in the Terra module of the National Resource Information Systems (NRIS) database.

Trails, stream corridors and old roadbeds are some of the common entry points and conduits for the spread of NNIPS, so it is no surprise that our inventory so far has shown the most diverse and numerous NNIPS populations occurring along the major waterways and trails that follow historical roads.  For example, Nepalese browntop (Microstegium vimineum) occurs in an almost unbroken strip along the banks of Sipsey Fork itself, as well as along Wilderness Trail 208, which follows the Old Northwest Road. 

Our Mission 

As an organization dedicated to restoring and protecting the native ecosystems of the Southeast, Wild South is proud of our collaborative relationship with the USFS Bankhead District.  Through this NNIPS inventory project, we are supporting their efforts to be conscientious stewards of the incredibly unique resource of the Sipsey Wilderness. 

We extend our sincere thanks to all members and supporters who have contributed to the match for the NFF grant which supports this project.  This project will be ongoing until the end of March, 2010.  If you would like to volunteer to assist in this important work and maybe see parts of the Sipsey Wilderness you have never seen, contact our Alabama Program Manager at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .