You can help protect the forest that you love on top of Great Blue Hill… just by walking the trails and taking photos of the plants!
When you sign up to participate in Survey and Save the Forest, you will survey the most destructive invasive plants on Great Blue as well as the native plants. Your data will help target invasive removal projects and help to better protect endangered and other native species. Last year’s volunteers surveyed Ponkapoag Pond. This year, volunteers are surveying — and helping to protect — Great Blue!
If you don’t know how to identify plants… don’t worry! You can attend a training to learn how to identify the key invasive plants as well as the native plants. You’ll also learn how to record their location in iNaturalist, and where to survey the plants on Great Blue.
Once you install iNaturalist on your phone, you simply take photos (using the app to record the GPS coordinates), and upload it to ‘Blue Hills – Invasive Survey’ project in iNaturalist.
Your photos – and those of many others – will help provide critical data to help create an invasive plant management plan, which will help create a roadmap to better control invasive plants and create a healthy forest!
Once you’re trained, you can participate on your own… or join one of the group training and survey events.
Email Julia Milot to learn more — or to learn when the next training is: Julia@friendsofthebluehills.org.
