Over the next five months, eight Spokane area young adults working with the Northwest Youth Corps’ Spokane Community Corps will participate in a large scale fuels reduction project.  In partnership with the Spokane BLM and WA State Department of Natural Resources, the crew will work in and around the Spokane area to remove hazardous fuels and create defensible space, minimizing the impacts of wildfire.   Many BLM and DNR lands in the Spokane area lie adjacent to residential neighborhoods and the reduction of hazardous fuels in these locations is an extremely high priority.

The program is the result of a partnership between AmeriCorps, The Corps Network’s Opportunity Youth Service Initiative (OYSI), and Northwest Youth Corps.   Through this initiative, young adults aged 18-24 who are unemployed, out of school and receiving public assistance will gain important work experience and certifications that will provide future opportunities in their employment. While completing high priority resource management projects, the participant will earn a living stipend as well as an Education Award at the end of their service.  With the experience, training, and education award, members will be better prepared to seek higher education and enter the workforce. Continue reading →

In 2011, flood waters surged across the riparian floodplains lining the Missouri River through the National Wild and Scenic River section of the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Within weeks, floodplains lining the river were covered in an emerald blanket of native cottonwood tree seedlings – a welcome sign of recovery for the endemic cottonwood forest.  The floods, however, also resulted in the massive dispersal of invasive tamarisk. Within months it was clear that new tamarisk stands were displacing native cottonwood seedlings and the valuable wildlife habitat provided by the cottonwood gallery that historically lined the river.

This summer, as part of the 21^st Century Conservation Service Corps, twenty youth with the Montana Conservation Corps are joining volunteers of the Friends of the Missouri River Breaks Monument to help the BLM protect native Cottonwood stands along this 149 mile section of Wild and Scenic Missouri River.  While removing the tamarisk and erecting fencing to protect cottonwood seedlings from grazing and browsing, the youth will learn about native plants and the historic, cultural and natural values of the Missouri River corridor. For centuries, this river corridor was utilized by Native American tribes following the great herds of bison, and in 1805, Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery navigated the Missouri on their way to and from the Pacific.

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The inaugural Arizona Conservation Corps First Stewards Corps crew, a program of Conservation Legacy, is working to maintain the Siphon Draw and First Water Trails, which lead into the Superstition Wilderness from Lost Dutchman State Park, just outside of Phoenix, AZ. This area is near the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and the area of the Superstition Mountains where the crew working is highly regarded by the native people from this area. This region of Arizona has hosted a relationship between the land and the people since 300 BC, when groups migrated into the Gila River Valley, and we honor this relationship with this crew and our conservation work.

The Superstition Mountains and the wilderness area that surrounds them is a special place to many people. In order to preserve and maintain the land while also allowing people to experience this wilderness, the crew is working to maintain several trails that have been damaged or were in severe disrepair. Many parts of the trail are unsafe and lead through steep and rocky terrain, which the crew is repair and increase the accessibility into this area.

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