What: Love native plants and seed collecting? Enjoy using iNaturalist? Combine the two and help us digitally seed scout ahead of the 2025 field season.
The US Forest Service Native Plant Materials Program collects seeds for restoration and post-fire efforts across Region 2 (Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska Wyoming, and South Dakota). Colorado Native Plant Society and Wildlands Restoration Volunteers have teamed up to work together to help reduce time spent on this effort in the face of budget reductions and vanishing field crews on our public lands.
Last season, crews drove many thousands of miles to scout viable plant populations. With digital scouting, you can help us cut driving time and fuel use by curating iNaturalist observations meeting certain criteria. All you need for this training is an iNaturalist account, some basic botanical knowledge, and a willingness to learn about the target species. We will get you familiar with contributing your observations from the field as well as those submitted by other users. In this way, seed scouting can be done in the field while hiking on your own or attending one of WRV’s many seed collections or restoration projects next season or from your desk before ever going outside.
Mele Avery, your trainer, is the Restoration Committee chair of the Colorado Native Plant Society and a volunteer co-instructor for Native Plant Master courses in Jefferson County. She leads volunteer seed collections for the USFS Native Plant Materials program across Colorado.
Details:
This training is intended for regular/frequent iNat users with good familiarity with Colorado plants and with the platform itself. You are welcome to view and join the project page.
This session will be hosted on a video conference platform, you will receive additional information and session links after registration. For questions using iNaturalist or the project contact Mele Avery at Colorado Native Plant Society and info@wrv.org for registration information. WRV volunteers and seed collectors are encouraged to attend this training, as your time on public lands along the Front Range can assist our efforts to find native seeds in increasingly difficult seasons due to climate change. By contributing to Citizen Plant Monitoring in iNaturalist, you are directly contributing to native species conservation.
Sing up here!
When: Wednesday, February 19th, 2025; 5pm-6:30pm.
Where: Virtual, link provided after registration.