Restoration Roundup Podcast Releases Season’s Final Episode on Streamside Buffers
In the May episode of the Restoration Roundup podcast, learn about Stream Wise, a Lake Champlain basin landowner incentive program to enhance and protect stream buffer vegetation. Podcast host Cate Kreider speaks with guests Lauren Jenness and Michele Braun who are closely involved with Stream Wise, which enlists community partners and their staff, like Jenness and Braun, to visit streamside properties and provide landowners with assessment and guidance. Well-managed stream and river vegetation and forest buffers help to increase flood resiliency and benefit water quality and natural habitat.
Hear from Jenness, environmental analyst with Lake Champlain Basin Program, and Braun, executive director of Friends of the Winooski River, about Stream Wise’s mission to work with landowners and how the property assessment process works. The Lake Champlain Basin Program funds Stream Wise in partnership with state and basin entities including Lake Champlain Sea Grant.
Restoration Roundup Takes a Break
After this latest podcast, Restoration Roundup will take a break while Lake Champlain Sea Grant hires a new Watershed Forestry Partnership coordinator and podcast producer.
Since September 2021, the Watershed Forestry Partnership produced monthly Restoration Roundup podcasts to inform the public about riparian (river, stream, and wetland) forest restoration practices and programs to improve flood resilience, water quality, and habitat in the Lake Champlain basin. The series reached 3100 listeners in 19 episodes!
The podcast hosted more than 40 guests from local government agencies and nonprofit organizations to discuss the work they do in riparian forest restoration. Guests discussed many topics including invasive species; supporting pollinator, bird, and fish habitat; addressing the shortage of native trees and shrubs for planting; landowner restoration projects; and much more to help landowners and land managers put riparian forest restoration into practice.
The podcast series was originally created and produced by former Watershed Forestry Partnership Coordinator Alison Adams, now director of the Forest Ecosystem Monitoring Cooperative.
"We started this podcast to address busy practitioners’ need to keep up on the latest research, best practices, and stories related to riparian forest restoration," said Adams. "I never could have anticipated how successful it would be. We had planned to do just 10 episodes, and thanks to Cate’s ability to take on directing and producing the podcast on her own, we ended up releasing almost twice that many! I’m excited to watch the podcast grow and evolve when the new Watershed Forestry Coordinator is on board."
During the podcast’s inaugural year, University of Vermont graduating senior Liz Woodhull co-hosted and co-produced episodes. Cate Kreider, who graduated from the University of Vermont in December, assisted this past year and produced several of the final episodes on her own.
"Working with Restoration Roundup was an essential part of finishing my journalism minor and fit perfectly with the other environmentally focused items on my resume,” said Kreider, who earned her degree in environmental studies. “Throughout each episode, I wanted to bring some part of riparian restoration to light. I hope that professionals across the basin have been able to connect with each other because of the work we talk about on this show."
Stay tuned!
Find the complete series of podcast episodes on the Watershed Forestry Partnership Restoration Roundup Podcast webpage or listen from most podcast streaming platforms.
Stay tuned for upcoming episodes. Thank you to Lake Champlain Basin Program and NEIWPCC for their support of the Restoration Roundup podcast over the past year and a half.