With support from the Equinox Foundation at the Inland Northwest Community Foundation, the NFF is working with the Forest Service, local partners and volunteer citizen scientists to survey and remove detrimental non-native invasive weeds in the Lightning Creek drainage of the Idaho Panhandle National Forest. A Treasured Landscapes: Unforgettable Experiences campaign project, with local partners and volunteers, we will identify areas of invasive species for treatment, and implement treatment on approximately 500 acres of noxious weeds. This project will expand and continue a very successful project and partnership between the NFF, the Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness, Idaho Master Naturalists, the Kinnikinnick Native Plant Society, and the Forest Service.

In an earlier phase of the project, partners and volunteers were trained by Forest Service staff to recognize native plants, rare plants, and invasive species. Volunteers were also trained to conduct inventory and assessment surveys. The Equinox Foundation funding will allow us to continue these surveys along trails where weeds were previously identified and treated, and also along the route of the new Beetop-Roundtop Trail as a preventative measure. The weeds will then be removed and eradicated. Surveys will take place in the backcountry, in flood disturbance areas, and along recreational trails.

The trained volunteers will be on the lookout for a new invader called Common Catsear, which looks like “a pretty dandelion”. This weed is moving into disturbed areas, particularly in wet places near culverts.

To read about volunteer weed surveying project and link to some great pictures from previous summers, click here: https://www.nationalforests.org/who-we-are/press-n...

The NFF has supported a similar project to tackle invasive plant species on both the Olympic and Gifford Pinchot National Forests through the Pacific Northwest Invasive Plant Council. You can read more about that project here.

To learn more about this work, please contact Karen DiBari: [email protected].