Chattooga Conservancy - Hemlock Woolly Adelgid Project
www.chattoogariver.org

The Chattooga Conservancy's Hemlock Woolly Adelgid project is aimed at locating infestations in order to know where to release predator beetles that are being bred in a lab in Clemson University. The Chattooga Conservancy is partnering with the Georgia Forestry Commission and Clemson University for this project. The piece of the project the AFRC will fund is related to the acquisition of data regarding the affected area of the pest. Community members work with the Chattooga Conservancy to locate areas of infestation. The members will learn what infestation looks like and how to judge to what degree an area is infested. They will then learn how to use topographical maps to locate areas that they have identified as infested, and share this information with the Chattooga Conservancy and with the others involved. Predator beetles will be released in the spring of 2004 and after another season, community members will once again monitor affected areas to determine the amount of control the beetles have established.

West Virginia Ginseng Growers' Association - Certification Strategies, Best Practices, and Bio-Control Research in Appalachian Woodland Plants
www.wvproducers.com/csr.htm

The West Virginia Ginseng Growers' Association (WVGGA) will be focusing its efforts on two main goals: compiling a list of best practices for growing ginseng in West Virginia; and an initial development of research protocol concerning biological fungus control in ginseng planting. They held their first public meeting in mid-February, with 40 participants attending. As a result of this meeting, the membership decided to take up an issue legislatively: The US Fish and Wildlife Service has taken the position that, because they cannot distinguish between wild and wild simulated ginseng, growers cannot sell their products except by wild harvest regulations. The membership wrote over five hundred letters outlining why ginseng growers promote Best Practices and sustain certain threatened species from becoming endangered. They have since gained the support of the entire legislative committee on agriculture. A bill has been drafted on the state level to study the issue and to eventually exempt growers from wild harvest laws. The membership is also pursuing this issue on the national level through congressional support. This meeting represented a central starting point for WVGGA's membership, which is now over 200 strong. To date, the majority of WVGGA's funding received from AFRC has been for travel reimbursement for members.

The Blue Ridge Sustainable Woods Cooperative
nextgenwoods.com/blue_ridge_forest_landowner_coop.htm

The long-term goal of this group was to put an infrastructure in place to educate landowners about the practice of sustainable forestry and about how to profit from the forest to support this type of management. This group's ultimate goal was to form a Forest Landowner Cooperative in the Central Blue Ridge. First, they used participant-driven research to determine the feasibility of their idea. They asked the question: "Is there sufficient interest from forest landowners in the central Blue Ridge region to organize a Cooperative?" Some of the smaller questions that were inherent in this broader one referred to the costs, benefits, barriers, and obligations involved in forming a cooperative. Then by partnering with a professional forestry consulting firm called Foresters Incorporated, the group was able to get started with Smartwood Certification and Forest Stewardship Council management plans, as a precursor to cooperative formation. Through this partnership as well as one with a local watershed-based land trust, many landowners in the Central Blue Ridge are now on the way to organizing the Blue Ridge Sustainable Woods Cooperative.

The Federal Valley Watershed Group
www.federalcreek.org

This AFRC cooperator sought to understand where to focus their attention in protecting and cleaning up local waterways. In order to be acquainted with the area's needs, Federal Valley Watershed Group needed to fully understand its landscape. They compiled numerous layers of Geographic Information Systems data describing everything from hydrology, natural areas and preserves to mine impacted areas and land use and land cover. From this data, they produced an ecoregion and watershed map that they will use to compare with already protected lands, as well as the Nature Conservancy's forest blocks. Through a strong effort in advertising, they have also made the data that they compiled available to all landowners in the region to help landowners envision how they fit into the landscape. With the start provided by AFRC's cooperator group funding, the Federal Valley Watershed Group can use the information that they've gathered to move on to their next step of making maps for landowners based on their individual needs.

Camp Mitchell Foundation and Craig County Rural Partnership - Craig Forest and Farm Project
/www.co.craig.va.us/business.htm#Craig%20County%20Rural%20Partnership

In order to gauge interest in various aspects of conservation, the Craig Forest and Farm Project drafted a survey sent to homes in many towns in the region. Surveys included a section on conservation which indicated interest in the following: agriculture, agri-tourism, National Forest resources, natural resources, forest products, local/regional history, hunting and fishing, land management, and wildlife habitat. The survey then further requested the level of interest in non timber forest products (NTFP's) by asking more specific questions such as which NTFP's people are experienced with and the extent of those peoples experience. The Craig Forest and Farm Project is still accepting surveys through its website and will provide programs related to the survey results, beginning in spring of 2004.

The Blue Ridge Resource Conservation and Development Council - Project Branch Out
www.energyxchange.org/mission_pbo.html

The goal of the Blue Ridge Resource Conservation and Development Council's Project Branch Out was to assist growers and entrepreneurs in the Blue Ridge region in profiting from its flora while protecting the same species in the wild. In its early stages, Project Branch Out had a connection with the Blue Ridge Landfill Methane Initiative, which sought to utilize landfill methane gas to meet local energy requirements, and its subsidiary The Energy Xchange Renewable Energy Center. During the first planning meetings, this group solicited suggestions about how to use the methane to benefit rural residents. One of the ideas that surfaced then was to feed into the desire of local forestland owners to generate income from their forest without harvesting trees. With a growing market demand for native rhododendrons and azaleas, these groups decided to partner up to meet their common goals; they created three greenhouses, heated by landfill gas, in order to raise native seedlings. As a result of this project, local growers benefit by having cheap native seedlings made available to them, while they also benefit through the availability of technical and financial assistance that Project Branch Out provides. Since the first three greenhouses were constructed, a fourth larger one has been built, also heated with landfill gas, allowing the group to exceed its 2002 production of 30,000 native seedlings. Expecting it to be completed this year, Project Branch Out is developing a Blue Ridge Regional Forestry and Horticulture Center, which will include a tissue culture lab, a museum, a library and an office space.

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