Coogan Farm Invasive Removal and Habitat Restoration

THE WAR ON INVASIVE SPECIES

Join or leave anytime! Onsite training, work includes clearing rocks, shrubs and trees of invasive vines and plants. Bring: sturdy gloves, loppers/shears, rake, shovel and a good pair of boots. If you have electric or gas hedge trimmer that would work great too! Call 401-600-1954 if you get lost. Follow orange flags to work site. Its the wet meadow at Coogan farm. Its behind/to the east of the giving garden.

Our natural lands are quickly being invaded by foreign invasive plants from thousands of miles away! These plants have been brought in by formal landscaping and gardening. Our government and local agencies can't/aren't willing to put towards efforts to contain the scourge.

That's where we come in! Working with land trusts and towns, we are the soldiers of nature, preventing our beautiful wild lands of native flowers, trees, and shrubs from being overtaken and replaced by an endless thicket of thorns and horticultural atrocities.

Significant amounts of both public and private land have been completely filled in with invasives. We must act NOW to contain and eventually eradicate these plants from further degrading our land.
This degraded land reduces forage for deer and turkeys, increases tick populations, and prohibits movement through them. These areas are generally less diverse, and songbird populations diminish.
Meet up goals:
Remove invasive plants with an ever-increasing army
Restore natural areas
Get more people outside and active in nature.
Giving back to nature by stewardship. Take pride in watching native plants and animals flourish in restored habitats.
Learn about the regions ecology while working with field experts and scientists!

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What to bring:
Water, food, shovels, loppers, handsaws, pruners, Sawzaw, Chainsaw, a backpack, gloves, work shoes, durable clothing, and the will to FIGHT THE SCOURGE.

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Some of the areas we are going to range from freshly invaded areas to completely infested areas and the hearts of enemy territory. The majority of these areas have only been invaded for less than 50 years.

It took 50 years for what we see to get this bad. It takes 8 hours for one person to clear half an acre of barberry. That might not seem like much, but 20+ years of growth from hundreds of plants can be cut in less than a day. Cutting prevents these plants from producing hundreds of thousands of seeds, further reducing the spread. Now imagine a crew of 20 people. That's nearly 10 acres of the start of habitat restoration. WE CAN DO IT.