Making Strides In Conservation Efforts At Yosemite
View VideoYosemite, CA – Yosemite National Park recently celebrated its conservation efforts on the Ackerson Meadow Restoration Project.
A crowd gathered last week at Ackerson Meadow, one of the largest public-owned mid-elevation meadows in the park, to get an update on the project. The full-fill restoration technique is being utilized in the largest restoration project in the Sierra Nevada, aiming to restore hydrologic function, renew wildlife habitat, and increase resilience to climate change effects in the meadow and downstream communities.
The meadow is threatened by a 3-mile-long erosion gully network that has eroded 150,000 cubic yards of vital wetland soils. The gully is still active today, measuring 14 feet deep and 100 feet wide, and nearly 90 acres of wetland have already been lost. Restoration actions are needed to protect over 100 acres of threatened wetland, which is likely to be permanently degraded without intervention.
Phase 1 involved restoring eight acres of eroded meadow, rewetting, and protecting over 78 acres of former and threatened habitat. Eight acres of disturbed ground were revegetated using 18 pounds of native, locally collected seed from over 20 plant species and 127,000 wetland container plants of four local species.
Phase 2 is next, and it will restore an additional 106 acres of wetland and wet meadow habitats by restoring the final 7,800 feet of the erosion gully.
Next spring, the meadow will be a wetland again after a century and a half. This year, the project dealt with the lower half of the meadow, and will do the upper half next year.
