{"id":880,"date":"2016-12-03T17:56:37","date_gmt":"2016-12-03T21:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/?p=880"},"modified":"2016-12-03T17:56:37","modified_gmt":"2016-12-03T21:56:37","slug":"growing-a-moss-conservation-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/?p=880","title":{"rendered":"Growing a moss conservation conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_881\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/?attachment_id=881\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-881\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-881\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-881\" src=\"http:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Tree_trunk_with_moss-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Photo by R. Hagerty and courtesy of USFWS\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Tree_trunk_with_moss-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Tree_trunk_with_moss.jpg 449w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-881\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo of moss on a tree trunk by R. Hagerty and courtesy of USFWS<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I\u2019ve been looking into our options for helping with moss conservation and, honestly, <em>the list is about as long as moss is tall<\/em>, which suggests that moss conservation really isn\u2019t on many people\u2019s radars at this point.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what I did find-<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ipcc.ie\/help-ipcc\/be-a-peat-free-gardener\/\" target=\"_blank\">Irish Peatland Conservation Council<\/a> recommends gardening without using peat moss<\/li>\n<li>the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lancswt.org.uk\/chat-moss-project\" target=\"_blank\">Lancashire Wildlife Trust<\/a> (and other local groups in the UK) has projects to restore mosslands<\/li>\n<li>Supporting forest reserves represents support for the moss species that live there- check out \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mass.gov\/eea\/docs\/eea\/lf\/whatare-forestreserves.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">What are forest reserves?<\/a>\u2019 from Mass Environmental Affairs for more info<\/li>\n<li>the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rbg.ca\/archive\/cbcn\/en\/information\/sar\/mosses.html\" target=\"_blank\">Canadian Botanical Conservation Network<\/a> has a list of mosses at risk, and you can get similar information from the IUCN<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Slim pickings, right? So, after the reading I\u2019ve done on moss research and conservation, I\u2019d like to add a few more recommendations.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When camping, <strong>consider leaving woody debris lying in the forest<\/strong> where it lies rather than collecting it for firewood<\/li>\n<li>Mosses are particularly sensitive to edge effects, so <strong>stay on hiking trails<\/strong> and use the same paths when walking through the woods in your area- that way you keep the disturbance localized<\/li>\n<li>When buying wood or managing a forest, <strong>push for long-term rotations in the cutting schedule<\/strong> so that a greater variety of moss species have a chance to recover before the next cutting<\/li>\n<li>When you find moss growing in your yard, <strong>consider it another microhabitat that enriches the ecosystem<\/strong>, rather than a weed<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And keep your eyes and ears open- based on the trend in the literature, more and more people are paying attention to mosses, so it\u2019s likely that there will be more opportunities for organized conservation work in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve been looking into our options for helping with moss conservation and, honestly, the list is about as long as moss is tall, which suggests that moss conservation really isn\u2019t on many people\u2019s radars at this point. Here\u2019s what I did find- the Irish Peatland Conservation Council recommends gardening without using peat moss the Lancashire [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[20,83,11,195,153,74],"class_list":["post-880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plant-communities","tag-conservation","tag-endangered-species","tag-get-involved","tag-moss","tag-plants","tag-restoration-projects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=880"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":883,"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions\/883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}