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| Press Release: May 23, 2006 | ||
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| OLVER ANNOUNCES $200,000 FOR "WEED IT NOW" | ||
WASHINGTON, D.C. ‚ Congressman John W. Olver (D-1st District) announced that the U.S. House of Representatives approved a funding bill today that includes $200,000 for Weed It Now, a conservation initiative to remove invasive species in the tri-state Southern Taconic Mountains in Berkshire County, western New York and northwest Connecticut. The funding was included in the fiscal year 2007 Agriculture Appropriations bill. Olver is a member of the Appropriations Committee and worked to secure the funding. "The work of the Nature Conservancy and its partners is so important because this area is one of the healthiest and largest contiguous forests in the northeast," Olver said. "At the start of this project, more than half of the forest was invaded by six different non-native weeds, which, if allowed to proliferate, would repress the regeneration of the forest and reduce the richness of native species. The removal of invasive weeds will help ensure that the forest and its vibrant population of rare species are preserved for future generations." "We applaud Congressman Olver for his leadership to restore the health of the forests in the Berkshire Taconics," said Wayne Klockner, State Director of the Massachusetts Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. "Thanks to Congressman Olverís continued support over five years, the Conservancy and our partners have successfully turned this priority landscape into a functioning ecosystem. Weed It Now serves as a national model and demonstrates how to combat invasive plants at scale." Olver has secured $900,000 in federal funding for Weed It Now from FY02 through FY06. Weed It Now, a program of The Nature Conservancy and its local partners, is an initiative to remove invasive plant species, which threaten native plants and animals, from approximately 9,000 acres of forest. The Nature Conservancy is working with a broad coalition of public and private forest landowners to remove invasive weeds by pulling, cutting, and where necessary, treating with herbicides. Other community-based programs will enhance this work by providing native plants for private landscaping and by keeping existing weed-free areas clean. For more information, contact Erika D. Levasseur at The Nature Conservancy at 413-229-0232, ext. 223 or elevasseur@tnc.org. |
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