Southeast Watershed Assistance Network -

Building Outside the Box - Sustainable Building

Home

Resources

Watershed Management

Building Materials and BMP's

Smart Growth

Consensus Building and Outreach

Organization Development

Data Resources

SE Organizations

Funding

Best Management Practices

Natural Resource Management

Resources

Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge: From Vision to Reality - Wayne H. Schacher
Published: 1/9/2005

2004 Southeast Watershed Roundtable Presentaion Click here for full agenda

Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge (SIWR) is a 400-acre tract of diverse, bottomland and upland habitats on Kelly Bend peninsula, adjacent to the French Broad River in eastern Tennessee. SIWR is under cooperative management and operation by the Seven Islands Foundation (SIF), a non-profit land conservancy, and Knox County (TN) Department of Parks and Recreation. Cooperative relationships have been established with a broad variety of federal and state agencies, educational institutions and conservation and civic organizations to receive technical assistance, project input, cost-share and in-kind funding. Land management strategies incorporated will demonstrate popular, cost-effective and practical land use options to the benefit of the general public, local governments and professional entities, and include recreational, demonstration, educational and research values and opportunities. SIWR is a public use facility, with an emphasis placed on low-impact, non-consumptive, activities for the enjoyment of the wildlife diversity and natural beauty of the refuge. In 2001, an Ecological Assessment was completed on SIWR which characterized existing land use and vegetative cover types, identified terrestrial habitats (27), and indicated representative botanical and zoological communities, including listed species, within each habitat. Building off the findings of the Ecological Assessment, a Lands Management Plan was written in early 2002, and is in its third year of implementation. The LMP guides efforts to enhance natural community (flora and fauna) diversity on SIWR, and to coordinate habitat conversion, restoration and diversification efforts. General strategies within the LMP include: conversion of former fescue-dominated, old field habitats to native warm season grasslands (NWSGs), enhancement of wetland habitats associated with an intermittent stream and upland pond, increased quality and complexity of riparian, and field border habitats, along with specific or indirect species-management initiatives.

Download PDF (4.1 MB)