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Gulf Guardian Award 2001 Synopsis of 3rd Place Winners
THIRD PLACE BUSINESS
| Project #: | HAB-01-19 |
| Company: | The Nature Conservancy – Mississippi Chapter |
| Project Name: | Old Fort Bayou Mitigation Bank |
| Category: | Business |
| Project Type: | Habitat, NS, NE |
| Average Rating: | 15.750 |
The Old Fort Bayou Mitigation Bank was established by The Nature Conservancy of Mississippi in 1997 to set high standards and provide wetland mitigation options with a conservation mission. Before 1997, wetland mitigation dedicated to the goal of “no net loss” of wetlands and focused on state of the art restoration and long-term management of key conservation tracts was not readily available on the Gulf Coast. The planning and approval process took approximately two years and resulted in the first wetland mitigation bank in the state as defined by the 1995 Federal Guidance on the Establishment of Mitigation Banks.
THIRD PLACE YOUTH/EDUCATION
| Project #: | HAB-01-33 |
| Company: | Submitted by Capt. W. Jay Tarkington |
| Project Name: | Adopt-A-Wetland Program, Corpus Christi TX |
| Category: | Education/Youth |
| Project Type: | Habitat |
| Average Rating: | 17.0967 |
The Adopt-A-Wetland Program is an ongoing project throughout Texas that centers on training teachers and others to use wetlands as outdoor laboratories. The program was developed to provide teachers with relevant curricula and biological tools to increase awareness of wetlands and their importance in the environment. The overall goal of the Adopt-A-Wetland Program is to enable youth and others to be better-informed environmental decision makers.
THIRD PLACE GOVERNMENT
– No 3rd place; there was a tie for 2nd place
THIRD PLACE CIVIC/NONPOFIT ORGANIZATION
| Project #: | GEN 01-03 |
| Company: | Ruskin Community Development Foundation |
| Project Name: | Camp Bayou Outdoor Learning Center |
| Category: | Citiv/Non-Profit Organization |
| Project Type: | General Gulf |
| Average Rating: | 14.107 |
Camp Bayou is an ongoing project begun in the spring of 1999. With an agreement with the county, the Ruskin Community Development Foundation has restructured an old RV park into a community nature center with all volunteer/all donation support. The visitor's center was created in what was once bathrooms and trails meander through woodlands once marred by trash. Situated along the Little Manatee River, the environmental information and education programs offered here are an attempt to reach the public with the message that our environment is a valuable resource and must be protected.
THIRD PLACE INDIVIDUAL
| Project #: | HAB-01-10 |
| Company: | LSU Agriculture Center & Louisiana Sea Grant |
| Project Name: | Marsh Maneuvers |
| Category: | Individual |
| Project Type: | Habitat |
| Average Rating: | 18.893 |
Mark Shirley has served as a coastal and marine extension agent since 1984, developing numerous education programs on the area’s coastal ecology, fisheries biology, and resource management. To parallel his adult outreach efforts, he founded the "Marsh Maneuvers Coastal Education Camp" in 1987. Since then, this program has expanded through various sponsors into a series of four-day camping sessions held annually each July. The program is now well-recognized as an intensive wetland odyssey featuring a range of educational activities related to coastal ecology, wetland loss, and key social issues affecting the health and economic well being of Louisiana's coastal communities.
THIRD PLACE PARTNERSHIP
| Project #: | NE-01-25 |
| Company: | Choctawhatchee, Pea and Yellow Rivers Watershed Management Authority, Troy AL |
| Project Name: | Unpaved Roads Erosion & Sediment Control |
| Category: | Partnership |
| Project Type: | Nutrient Enrichment (also Habitat) |
| Average Rating: | 14.464 |
The Choctawhatchee, Pea and Yellow Rivers Watershed Management
Authority and its partners, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, ten county commissions, county engineers, a private engineering
firm and the Alabama NPS program installed on the ground measures
to control erosion and sediment from unpaved
roads and developed and conducted education programs for
road crews involved in maintenance of unpaved county roads. The
manual of practice and video created by the project have since
been distributed across the nation and around the world. The project,
at least in part an outgrowth of an erosion and sediment control
workshop addressing unpaved roads that was conducted in March
1999 by the Alabama NPS Education Program. This effort has and
will continue to make a difference by reducing sediment delivery
to streams in the Choctawhatchee Basin and beyond.
Posted: 12 July 2001
