Pubic Outreach definition
Pubic Outreach. The project has included the community in both cleaning up the area prior to restoration and building trails after restoration was complete. In the first year, they took over 300 youths canoeing on the river and backwaters and hosted environmental education programs at the CRIT Head Start Program and ▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ Junior High School.33 They also conducted summer camps. The Preserve Educator regularly visits schools to teach about local wildlife or add lessons to the currently prescribed curriculum. The Preserve staff also conducted teacher in-service training which included tours of the Preserve, and student activities. Another challenge encountered was that some of the channel locations had to be modified from the original design due to rock outcroppings. On future projects, the restoration team recommends the use of real-time survey control over traditional tape and stake methods to minimize deviations from the design. Challenges also occurred with erosion of culverts, which lead CRIT to recommend that consultant’s contracts include performance criteria that stipulate how remedial repairs will be conducted if culverts and other features are found to be structurally deficient after initial use. 34 Additional challenges also complicated the project, including lack of information regarding the effects of restoration projects in the Lower Colorado River Basin. Project planners had few resources for looking at previous projects in the basin to determine what strategies had been successfully employed and what gains had been made. The project also struggled with excessive reproduction of exotic plant species and insufficient reproduction of native plant species. To date, the project has had many successes, including stimulating interest in restoration activities on other properties in the area. The ‘Ahakhav Tribal preserve nursery now sells over 50,000 trees annually to restoration projects on the Colorado River.35 The project is also one the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Plan (MSCP) models. The BOR uses the ‘Ahakahv Tribal Preserve as a base for many of it’s experimental revegetation programs as part of the MSCP. Over 200 acres of additional 33 CRIT Education Department. (1997) Ahakhav Tribal Preserve Habitat Restoration Project, 2nd quarterly report June 4, 1997. ▇▇▇▇▇▇: CRIT Education Department. 34 Environmental Management International, Inc. (2000) Final Report: Post Restoration Activities Stage VIII ‘Ahakhav Preserve Backwater Restoration ...