The Berry College Longleaf Management Plan

A plan for the study and management of Mountain Longleaf Pine on Lavendar Mountain

Accepted by the Educational Land Management Presidential Task Force and

Dr. Scott Colley, President of Berry College, Fall 2002

Student Contributors: Eduardo Aguilar-Espinoza, Sofia Arce-Flores, Corey Babb, Lisa Barnes, Melanie Barnett, Melanie Belk, Rebecca Bennett, Brooke Bowen, Rex Bowman, Amy Brown, Ian Cipollini, Chris Clary, Carly Donahue, Janine Douglass, Kevin Eifell, Jason Farmer, Amy Gaskell, Sally Hileman, Walter Hutchins, Alison Hydeman, Jeremy Jones, John Jones, Stacy Lindsey, Carrie Manous, Lauren Marziliano, Kimberly Mink, Diane Mitchell, Rebecca Neal, Meghan Nolan, Pennsylvania Olinda, John Oliver, Paul Pugliese, Kristen Palmer, Sonya Payne, Susan Roth, Anna Sanders, Sarah Stephan, Karen Vaughn, StephanieWallace, Sarah Williams, Shelby West, Christopher Worrell, and Kerri Wrinn.

Berry College Department of Biology

Mount Berry, GA 30149

Preface

In the spring of 1999, the Berry College Plant Ecology class and I initiated a long-term study of longleaf pine on Berry’s Lavender Mountain, based partly on some work done by former Berry student Roger Birkhead several years earlier. The data collected by that group of students lead to the formation of a follow-up project by the Plant Ecology class of 2001. This class contributed additional background data concerning Berry’s longleaf, and then drafting a management plan focusing on conservation, education, research, and public outreach. Using the students’ drafts as a starting point, Ms. Karen Vaughn and I drafted a formal management plan in the summer of 2001. After much advice and feedback from members of the Berry Longleaf Network (a group of interested outside professionals), I finalized the plan in the spring of 2002 and presented it to Dr. Colley and the ELM Task Force. It was accepted in the fall of 2002.

The management plan is the product of the work of a large number of dedicated students and professionals, and not simply the vision of one person. The project as presented here is purposefully constructed to address our institutional mission of “head, heart, and hands”, and I think sends all the right messages to the outside world concerning Berry’s interest in the stewardship of its natural resources and the education of its students. The students and I could not have pulled this work together were it not for the help of the various members of the Berry Network (most notably Mr. John McGuire of the Longleaf Alliance).

Early management work was supported by Dean Wilson and Frank George (Berry Land Resources) and by the Interagency Burn Team (US Fish & Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, Georgia Forestry Commission, Georgia DNR, and The Nature Conservancy). We thank everyone who has contributed even the smallest amount of feedback to us or helped us in any way. If this project is to remain viable in the future, we will be leaning on these same individuals and groups; for the most part their only reward is seeing to it that the longleaf pine, a true example of southern heritage, remains a part of these Georgia hills. We dedicate this proposed management plan to those individuals and their shared vision.

Martin Cipollini, Project Coordinator

March 2005

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