The CRISP Partners Meeting will include a training workshop for the comprehensive MaMA program for EAB management and ash conservation. Join us to learn how you can help save ash in the Catskills! MaMA (see www.MonitoringAsh.org) was developed by the Ecological Research Institute (ERI) in close consultation with US Forest Service scientists leading the fight against EAB. The training will be presented by MaMA’s originators: ERI’s director, Jonathan Rosenthal, and senior scientist, Dr. Radka Wildova, both experts in EAB ecology and management. It is one of a series of eight such workshops to be presented throughout CRISP to enable broad participation in this program.

MaMA’s innovations include adapting USFS protocols for monitoring ash mortality and detecting lingering ash (EAB-resistant trees) to make them easily usable by land managers and citizen scientists. These trees offer the best hope for ash conservation and restoration (see www.monitoringash.org/lingering-ash-info/). In this workshop, participants will learn, among other things, how to establish ash mortality monitoring plots that form part of the MaMA Monitoring Plot Network extending throughout the Catskills and beyond, which is coordinated by ERI. ERI uses the data from this network, in close cooperation with the USFS, to determine when particular areas are ready to search for lingering ash. Because of this network’s use of scientifically rigorous protocols, attendance at an ERI MaMA training workshop is required for participation. Similarly, this workshop is required for participation in MaMA’s lingering ash Anecdata reporting project, given the importance of finding trees that meet strict criteria.

The workshop will include training in MaMA’s “Possible Lingering Ash Toolkit” (essential for protecting potential lingering ash from being cut down), and introduction to MaMA’s other tools and overall integrated approach to EAB management and ash conservation. CRISP has had major input into ERI’s development of MaMA over the years, and this program is uniquely suited to the challenges that EAB poses to ash in the Catskills.