You wake up as the sun rises to the soft sound of birds chirping. Stretching in your tent, you hear the gentle rustle of the rest of your crew waking up, too. Just weeks ago, the six of you were complete strangers. Now, they’re some of your closest friends. After a cup of black coffee and a quick breakfast, you help load shovels, mallets, and trees onto the trailer. You all squeeze into the car again for another day of planting trees.
This was a typical morning for a member of the Appalachian Conservation Corps’ (ACC) Watershed Corps. A part of Conservation Legacy, ACC “works to connect young people to critical conservation service projects across the Appalachian region and neighboring communities.” This mission directly relates to the Upper and Middle James Riparian Consortium’s (Consortium) mission to “support a network of partners, build workforce capacity, and increase implementation of riparian forested buffers.” The two organizations were a perfect fit to work together.
The opportunity for the Consortium and ACC to work together came with the creation of the James River Stewardship Program (JRSP). In this program, Seasonal Stewardship Assistants spend the summer assessing Riparian Forest Buffers and creating recommendations for invasive species management, replanting, and tree shelter maintenance. After the summer is complete, the JRSP provides landowners with the opportunity to put those recommendations into action at no cost to them.
ACC was contracted to provide replanting and tree shelter maintenance for JRSP sites. Between the first and second year of the program, the crews planted almost 4,000 new trees and provided tree shelter maintenance on nearly 50 acres. ACC also supported year three of the program, combining replants and maintenance of JRSP sites with replants and maintenance for some James River Buffer Program (JRBP) sites. This spring, the ACC crew planted over 2,000 trees across 63 acres and provided tree shelter maintenance for half.
ACC has plans to replicate the JRSP in the Rappahanock and Shenandoah watersheds. JRA and ACC also plan to continue working together in summers to come!
