Volunteers rally to restore wildlands in a big way

By Dan MacArthur
North Forty News

Wildlands Restoration Volunteers has brought to Fort Collins its energetic and irrepressibly cheerful approach to making volunteering more organized, fun and effective.

And WRV is wasting no time taking on some serious restoration projects in this region. In partnership with the city of Fort Collins, some 70 volunteers in April planted hundreds of native trees and shrubs, removed invasive Russian olive trees and improved the channel of the Burns Tributary. It flows from the foothills west of Fort Collins into Fossil Creek, a valuable wildlife corridor extending to the Fossil Creek Natural Area.

Then on May 8, a truly monumental restoration will begin at Campbell Valley within the historic Roberts Ranch at Livermore. Much of the ranch was placed in a conservation easement through the efforts of Larimer County, Fort Collins, Great Outdoors Colorado and the Nature Conservancy – which manages the easement.

Volunteers that day will harvest cuttings of willows and cottonwoods that grow fast and provide good stream bank stabilization. A week later, on May 15, those cuttings will be planted in the first of several phases of a multi-year effort to stabilize gaping gullies up to 30 feet deep and 1,000 feet long.

An irrigation ditch breach early last century scoured Spring Gulch, the main spring-fed creek in the valley, causing its elevation to drop by 40 feet. The tributaries followed suit, resulting in an estimated loss of 15 million tons of sediment.

"It was a real eye-opener to see the scale of devastation on this site," said John Giordanengo, projects manager for the Fort Collins office.

The Burns Tributary and Campbell Valley restoration efforts are among the nearly 40 projects sponsored each year by WRV. The nonprofit organization formed in 1999 as a grassroots group of 20 volunteers dedicated to erosion control, stream bank stabilization, and wetland and stream restoration.

Since then, WRV has mobilized 10,000 volunteers to improve 14,500 acres of wildlife habitat, plant 120,000 trees and native plants, restore 13 miles of streams, obliterate more than 15 miles of habitat-fragmenting roads, and benefit dozens of rare or threatened species.

To grow and evolve, it became evident that volunteer leaders – technical advisors, cooks, crew leaders and tool managers – were needed to organize and focus what otherwise can be chaotic volunteer efforts. Training programs ensued and now WRV has a staff of 300 volunteer trainers.

Collaboration is key to WRV's mission of promoting "a community spirit of shared responsibility for stewardship and restoration of public lands." Accordingly, it works closely with land managers such as the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and city and county open space programs.

Together they identify restoration projects and marshal the resources to accomplish them based on the best scientific approaches. Giordanengo said it typically takes a year for projects to become a reality while complicated ones like the Campbell Valley restoration required four years.

Those relationships result in technical assistance along with funding opportunities to support WRV's activities. Giordanengo said the group often is eligible to receive fees for the services it provides, which can be leveraged with matching funds from grants or other nonprofits. Memberships and fund-raising events also provide revenue to WRV.

But it's the boots-on-the-ground volunteers that really make it all happen. And recruiting, training and mobilizing volunteers are WRV's greatest strengths. The group is constantly recruiting a diverse and dedicated network of volunteers, particularly those living in communities near the project sites. No experience is required.

Giordanengo estimates there are now a couple thousand volunteers available for restoration projects principally along the northern Colorado Front Range and in southern Wyoming.

"We have a phenomenal database," he said. "We can pretty much get the volunteers when we need them because we've been doing it so long."

The projects involve an average of 60 volunteers, but can range from 10 to 100. They can last a day or a weekend and even longer, requiring camping in spectacular country. Sometimes volunteers need to return for several years to see the project through, providing a real sense of satisfaction seeing the product of their labors.

Volunteers work hard, but there are tradeoffs in addition to the satisfaction of healing a piece of the Earth. There's a real sense of celebration and good fellowship working beside like-minded folks similarly inspired by wildlands.

WRV also is committed to providing an educational and, perhaps most importantly, a fun experience that builds friendships and strengthens communities.

"When someone arrives on site, they're what we call 'pleasantly engaged,'" said Giordanengo. They're greeted with an invigorating hot beverage before getting down to work. A tasty meal and educational talk typically is provided around noon and maybe a little music when the project ends midafternoon.

More information about Wildlands Restoration Volunteers and descriptions of upcoming projects are available at www.wlrv.org.