Restoration Roundup Season 1
Restoration Roundup is a monthly podcast that invites guests from local government and nonprofit organizations to discuss the work they are doing in riparian forest restoration around the Lake Champlain basin. Season one of Restoration Roundup ran from September 2021 through September 2022. The podcast is part of the Watershed Forestry Partnership, a program housed within University of Vermont Extension and Lake Champlain Sea Grant.
Season 1 Episodes
Episode 1: Emerald Ash Borer and Riparian Forests. In the inaugural episode of Restoration Roundup, listen to hosts Alison Adams and Liz Woodhull speak with US Forest Service entomologist, Patrick Engelken, about the effects of emerald ash borer in riparian forests.
Episode 2: Vermont's Native Tree Stock Shortage. In this episode, our hosts speak with Annalise Carington, Conservation Specialist at the Intervale Center and U.S. Fish & Wildlife, and Lynda Prim, manager of the Intervale Conservation Nursery. We discuss the shortage of native trees and shrubs for restoration work in Vermont.
Episode 3: The Buzz on Buffers: Talking Pollinators with Jason Mazurowski. Our hosts joined by ecologist and naturalist Jason Mazurowski, discuss how practitioners and farmers can best support pollinators, particularly in riparian forests.
Episode 4: The Agroforestry Buffers Frontier: Planting “extreme” agroforestry buffers to improve water quality and farmers’ bottom lines. This episode is a lively conversation with Brenda Sieglitz, Senior Manager of the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership and Audrey Epp Schmidt, Director of Business Development at Propagate Ventures, about the potential of incorporating commercial agroforestry into riparian buffers to provide both ecological benefits and financial returns for farmers.
Episode 5: Developing Disease-Tolerant Elm Trees for Riparian Forest Restoration (and more). With guests Leila Pinchot and Kathleen Knight of the U.S. Forest Service, we discuss the impacts dutch elm disease has on ecosystems and Knight and Pinchot’s work in developing disease tolerant elms, the role of elm trees in riparian forests, gaps in understanding the disease, the impact climate change has on this disease, and more!
Episode 6: The Role of Riparian Forests in Supporting Bird Populations. This episode is all about birds! We speak with Allan Strong and Margaret Fowle about the importance of riparian areas for birds, and how riparian forest restoration practitioners can best support bird populations.
Episode 7: What is it like to be a landowner restoring a riparian forest? For this episode, we hear from farmers themselves on how their restoration projects changed how they view land management, what they learned, and the positive impacts they’ve seen the forests make on wildlife and their surrounding waterways.
Episode 8: Alien invasion: How can we control invasive plants in restoration projects? In this episode we interviewed Katie Kain and Ethan Tapper to discuss the effects of invasive species on riparian areas, and strategies landowners and ecosystem managers can use to control them.
Episode 9: Addressing the native tree stock shortage: the Akwesasne Native Plant Nursery. In the episode, we discuss what it took to start a new nursery during the pandemic, and what the goals of the Akwesasne Native Plant Nursery (ANPN) are. To provide enough plant material for the restoration projects our region plans to undertake in coming years, we will need many more nurseries, so we were very excited to hear about this one.
Episode 10: Fish Grow on Trees. With guests Bret Ladago and Will Eldridge of Vermont Fish and Wildlife, we discuss the threats climate change poses to fish populations and the role of riparian forests in adaptive management.
Epsiode 11: Process-based restoration at the Hubbardton River Clayplain Forest. For the final episode of this first season, we spoke with Shayne Jaquith and Gus Goodwin of The Nature Conservancy Vermont and Kristen Balschunat of the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps about a process-based restoration project TNC is leading in the Hubbardton Rover and its surrounding claypan forest in West Haven, Vermont.