Everything needs maintenance. You are probably nodding your head right now. Conservation projects and park improvements, once done, are celebrated. But often, after the celebration, maintenance is underfunded or unequally distributed, so important investments in pollinators, water quality and public health are diminished. New initiatives often lose momentum and fall into disarray because they lack proper maintenance techniques.
River Action, through grant funding, is proposing a land management training program for city and park employees. The training, which will be geared towards directors and land maintenance staff, comes after the need was articulated by local municipalities.
Working plans will be created if they are not in place already. Landscape plans explain why a tree was planted in this particular spot because healthy trees require less care, why this plant was planted on a slope with steep grade where erosion is a concern because prevention is far cheaper than repair, why this particular soil type was the reason for this ground cover, and why compacted soil, something found in urban parks, needs microbes to naturally de-compact and add much needed nutrients to it. Amending soil composition greatly reduces labor over time. All these practices, a part of good stewardship planning, will be demonstrated, not only in a classroom, but in the field.
By design, the training approaches municipal projects from a more community-oriented perspective, taking into account ecosystem health, effective water retention, and local programming, all moving beyond standard mowing and spraying.
Finally, think of it this way. How we take care of each other is really inseparable from the way we take care of our natural resources. Everything seeded and planted needs appropriate maintenance, help, and extra attention just as people need it when we are addressing our community’s health.