Monday, April 9th marked the first Upper and Middle James Riparian Consortium meeting of 2020. Professionals from land, water, plant, and wildlife communities joined together in Scottsville, VA to discuss current Consortium projects, highlights, and goals.
The morning started with Action Team highlights, where our Director of Conservation Programs, Kelli Iddings, shared her progress on the work she has been doing as the lead of the Consortium’s Outreach and Awareness Team.
Attendees then listened as Ann Marie Roberts of the James River Association shared updates and project highlights on the James River Buffer Program- a program designed to restore and create forest buffers that improve the quality of local waterways in the Middle James. After an overview of the Watershed Implementation Plan III riparian buffer goals, attendees split into small groups to discuss and develop buffer goals and methods of outreach across partner organizations. In the photo below, Kelli Iddings leads a group breakout session that aims to identify different user groups in the Middle James for buffer outreach efforts.
Kelli then guided the group through a discussion of how these groups might be distributed geographically and what outreach strategies would be most useful considering these factors.
How would you get out the word to cattle farmers in Buckingham County? How about the recreational enthusiasts of Albemarle County?
Stay tuned for more updates throughout the year!
For questions how you can get involved in these efforts please visit https://jamesriverconsortium.org/ or email kiddings@conservationpartnersllc.com.
