7. PRSR 04-11-2007 - Laserfiche WebLink

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varying quality. Management activities can influence one or more aspects of the managed community and have lasting, long-term implications. To avert any possible damages and to make sure that the best possible practices are used for restoring natural communities, it is important to monitor chosen aspects of those communities on a regular basis. Vegetation monitoring should also be conducted to watch for shifts in the plant community composition due to management activities. Under certain conditions, activities such as fire have the ability to increase the presence of some species at the expense of others. If detrimental changes are spotted early, resource management activities can be adjusted to prevent significant shifts in community function or composition. When monitoring the site, a specific effort should be made to annually inspect for the presence of oak wilt. As with other stages of the restoration process, monitoring should be carried out on a regular basis to provide for determining resource management effectiveness. Also important will be monitoring for excessive human disturbance such as off-trail erosion, tree cutting, dumping, etc. Monitoring can be an expensive and labor-intensive process that has the potential to take valuable monetary and human resources away from the process of active management if not exercised judiciously. Deciding what to monitor and how intensively to monitor is always difficult. Some aspects of management can be monitored through visual inspection with field notes recorded and shared between the park and the resource manager. Other aspects may require that quantitative monitoring be undertaken, such as long-term monitoring of rare plants/animals, although rare species are not part of the equation with this restoration project. As part of the process of visually inspecting areas and assessing management efficacy without quantitative monitoring, it would be recommendable to keep a field journal of management activities, such as one found in the appendices of this report. This could be used by the natural resource manager for the purpose of tracking observations made. These observations may include species noted, fire effects, unusual weather events, human disturbance, activities of work crews in the forest and buffer, and the quality of their work performed, as well as many others. Although this type of information may not be quantitative, it is crucial to help with adapting management strategies in the future. This is especially true for the long-term, since personnel and policy changes within organizations are inevitable. This information would give future managers the benefit of insight on daily and yearly activities within the forest as they relate to resource management. Photomonitoring Top of the World Park Addition Natural Area Management Plan 14