Shoreline Buffer Zone Grant Projects
The concept of NEST began in 2002 during the development of the Lemon Bay Ecosystem Restoration PRoject. Staff observed that interaction between land managers, restoration ecologists, and the public occurred only in cases of disputes or conflicts. These cases were mostly due to a lack of communication of restoration goals on the part of the county, and a lack of understanding of nautral processes and mechanical activities employed to reach such goals on the part of the public.
NEST was developed not only to relate the Lemon Bay Ecosystem Restoration Project to the surrounding neighborhood, but also to involve people in the process. To this end, this was the first NEST project and several activities were opened to volunteers for participation, including fish sampling, frog listening network, trash clean-up and air potato round-up events, and plantings. In 2004, Scrub jay Watch was added to the program.
To date, we have had approximately 50 people participate in the Lemon Bay NEST, many of them repeatively attend activities. Of the activities, fish sampling did not work well as a volunteer activity because it was extremely physical activity in remote locations. Clean-up, exotic removal, and planting events were all well attended. These events were the least in time commitments and complexity. The monitoring activities like frog listening and jay watch were difficult to maintain lasting commitments.
NEST Leader – Theresa Fouts
