Dear Partners,

Happy November! With the shorter days, the APIPP team is turning its focus from conducting field work to analyzing the data collected over the summer. We are also looking ahead to next year, when we begin implementing the just-released Adirondack PRISM 2023-2027 Strategic Plan. Read all about the new plan below and view the plan or a two-page summary on our website.

The entire APIPP team is excited about the upcoming Year-End Partner Meeting on December 1. Please join us to hear about field season highlights, and to learn more about the strategic plan and how we can track our collective efforts to mitigate the impact of invasive species across the Adirondacks. See more below and register to join us on Zoom on December 1.

We have some hopeful news to wrap up the field season. APIPP’s Zack Simek joined a team from the NYS Hemlock Initiative to release biological control beetles for hemlock woolly adelgid in the Lake George area in late October. The beetles are successfully reproducing in other regions of NY, and we hope they will help control the population of adelgid around Lake George. Check out photos on our Facebook page.

Lastly, I’d like to thank the amazing Forest Pest Hunters who searched for beech leaf disease this fall. Volunteers surveyed 33 trails and entered an impressive 94 observations into iMapInvasives. Learn more about Forest Pest Hunter and Lake Protector program successes at our December 1 Partner Meeting.

Adirondack PRISM 2023-2027 Strategic Plan Released

The Adirondack Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management (PRISM) Strategic Plan 2023–2027 outlines how APIPP and its partners will minimize the impact of invasive species on the Adirondack region’s communities, lands, and waters in the years ahead.

The plan begins with an overview of the PRISM and the invasive species threat. The Adirondack PRISM covers all or parts of 12 counties, and includes 119 towns. These towns are home to 221,000 permanent residents; 123,000 of whom live within the Adirondack Park’s boundary. The Park is visited by over 12 million tourists each year. The PRISM is also home to nearly 100 tracked invasive species: 74 terrestrial species and 23 aquatic species. New invasives—such as hemlock woolly adelgid, emerald ash borer, and beech leaf disease—have come into the region since the last plan was released in 2013.

There is hope though. The new strategic plan outlines four simple goals with achievable objectives that provide a clear path for anyone interested in working on invasive species to see how they can contribute to regional efforts. Learn more about the plan on our website and at our upcoming Partner Meeting.

Adirondack PRISM Year-End Partner Meeting: December 1, 9:30am-12:00pm, Zoom

Join Adirondack PRISM partners and APIPP staff for the Year-End Partner Meeting. This online conversation will include highlights of APIPP’s 2022 field season and a discussion of the new Adirondack PRISM 2023–2027 Strategic Plan and Partnership Operating Principles.

The meeting is a great opportunity to learn more about the strategic plan and how partners can help minimize the impact of invasive species on the Adirondack region. We hope you will join us for a discussion of how partners can contribute to advancing the goals of the strategic plan over the next five years and how we can collectively demonstrate the impact of our work. Register here.

Partners, if you would like to send a slide highlighting a few milestones from your field season, we will share the slides during the meeting break and make them available on our website. Please send your slide to tammara.vanryn@tnc.org no later than November 23. Partners will have the opportunity to share more about their work at our Winter Partner Roundtables on February 8 (Aquatic Invasive Species) and February 9 (Terrestrial Invasive Species.)

Regards,

Tammara 

P.S. The Adirondack Invasive Species Summit was a great event. The speakers were amazing, the presentations informative, and the discussions invaluable. If you missed the event, the Facebook live recordings are available here.