Landscape Stewardship Certificates of Appreciation - 2010

Left to right: John Scheuring looks on as Lahsha Brown receives Certificate of Appreciation from PLF President Henri Bisson

THE PUBLIC LANDS FOUNDATION presents John Scheuring and the Friends of the Ironwood Forest with a Landscape Stewardship Certificate of Appreciation and this Citation.  The Foundation grants this recognition to honor private citizens and organizations that work to advance and sustain community-based stewardship on landscapes that include, in whole or in part, public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Recognizing the spread of buffelgrass as the greatest current threat to the Ironwood Forest National Monument, and BLM’s very limited resources to address it, John organized volunteers from various communities around the monument to quickly and repeatedly remove buffelgrass from the monument through a concentrated and orchestrated group of intensive projects, or “pulls.”  John focused the volunteers’ efforts on the Waterman Mountains because of the unique sensitivity of this area to buffelgrass and the rare and unique vegetative resources found there.  To date, 14 different pulls have been completed and the partnerships between BLM, the Friends of the Ironwood Forest, and other local organizations and the public that participated have been strengthened.

Results of the “Save the Waterman” project have been beyond everyone’s initial expectations.  Buffelgrass has been nearly completely eradicated from the Waterman Mountains, with ongoing projects targeted at the remaining small patches.  The objective is to have the entire mountain under control by the end of 2010. This success has motivated John and BLM to already begin planning for a new “Save the Silverbells” campaign, also on the Ironwood Forest National Monument.

John’s volunteer recruitment efforts bore fruit as numerous individuals arrived to pull buffelgrass on repeated occasions.   Not only did BLM get the labor it needed to get the job done, but many more people were educated about the issues surrounding buffelgrass through the broad outreach that took place to get this event off the ground.  As a result, the public’s awareness about buffelgrass has increased and Tucsonans and others from nearby communities recognize this weed as a threat not only to the monument but throughout the region.

The Public Lands Foundation is pleased to present John Scheuring and the Friends of the Ironwood Forest with this Citation and a Certificate of Appreciation for invaluable contributions to the stewardship of America’s public landscapes.

 

Henri Bisson
September 15, 2010