From how to keep trash out of the Bay; to how to plant a pollinator garden; or attract wildlife to your woodland, University of Maryland Extension (UME) implements numerous stewardship programs that train and educate individuals on actions they can take within their own communities to keep Maryland healthy. While AGNR research, large-scale clean-ups by NGOs, and policy development at the state level help keep Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay clean, as citizens, we all share the responsibility for protecting our land and water.
Many of these programs stand on the shoulders of UME’s Bay-Wise Landscape Management Master Gardener Training Program, which is celebrating 25 years of educating citizens on stewardship of Maryland and its waterways. It was the first advanced training for Master Gardeners, said Wanda MacLachlan, Bay-Wise Program coordinator and senior agent who developed the original curriculum for the training.
“It took a holistic approach to landscape management and we called it Bay-Wise because we teach people to make wise choices for the Chesapeake Bay,” she said.
Bay-Wise Master Gardeners are educated in the history and the state of the Bay and its watershed. They learn a variety of topics in Bay stewardship including contaminating factors, Maryland’s hydrology, native and invasive species, integrated pest management, water conservation, and even a unit on hazardous household products and viable alternatives.
Bay-Wise Master Gardeners are tasked with sharing that knowledge and educating their friends and neighbors to become stewards of their own personal landscapes. “It’s one thing for government to put regulations in place, but it’s up to us as citizens to change our behaviors,” MacLachlan said. “That’s what it takes—everyone working together and doing their part.”
Currently, over 1,500 Master Gardeners have been trained in Bay-Wise across the state that volunteer to teach others Bayfriendly horticulture, as well as certify outdoor spaces as Bay-Wise based on the Bay-Wise Yardstick—a tool developed specifically to assess a landscape’s Bay-friendliness.
The original Bay-Wise Yardstick looks at various factors in a landscape, natural and implemented, that serve the needs of Bay health, like stormwater management, wildlife enhancements such as bird baths, and native plants. In the 25 years of certifying Maryland yards, the Bay-Wise team has also developed a Yardstick to certify food gardens, and their newest release developed in 2021, the Small Space Gardens Yardstick. Small space gardens could include townhomes, balcony spaces, or even potted plants in window gardens.
The changes to the Bay-Wise program have not been limited to the yardsticks, however, as MacLachlan has seen the topics and needs shift as well. “We used to talk a lot about lawn care and fertilizer use, and since the trainings began, we’ve seen a behavior change,” MacLachlan said. “Nowadays, watershed management and stormwater management have become more important.”
Indeed, stormwater management has become so important that another team of stewards—the Watershed Stewards—was born out of the need for an educational program that used the same train-the-trainer model used by the Master Gardeners and Master Naturalists to educate the public through volunteer outreach.
While Bay-Wise focuses on protecting water quality through healthy horticulture practices, Watershed Stewards are trained to assess sources of pollution, develop restoration opportunities, implement stormwater management best practices, and work with their communities to build awareness and behavior change in people.
Creating an appreciation for Maryland’s natural ecosystems is a goal of UME’s newest stewardship program as well. Approved in the fall of 2021, the Delmarva Woodland Stewards program was in development at time of publication.
“We will use a landscape and watershed management approach to train citizen stewards to improve forest management on the Delmarva Peninsula,” said Agnes Kedmenecz, forest stewardship educator. “And that’s the goal—to train people on best management practices for their own woodlands so that they can then do their own outreach and stewardship activities that matter to them, within their own communities.”
While UME has long offered a Woodland Stewardship program, the dynamics of the Delmarva Peninsula create not only unique ecosystems between the Atlantic beaches and the Chesapeake shores, its composition of three states also results in a need for partnerships between state entities. The Delmarva Woodland Stewards will work with University of Delaware Cooperative Extension and the Virginia Department of Forestry to create the curriculum and develop the program materials, as well as numerous other NGOs like the Nature Conservancy.
“We’re just a slice of a much bigger project led by the Forest Service,” Kedmenecz said. The stewardship program will be complemented by a variety of other educational materials and facilities including demonstration sites, and a virtual library as a resource for forestry professionals and land managers, she said.
“The stewardship program itself will be a hybrid model of virtual and in-person sessions,” said Kedmenecz. “We’ll cover topics like prescribed burning, buffer plantings, and wildlife enhancement.”
While Extension faculty work hard to educate Marylanders on best sustainable practices, it’s the teams of volunteer stewards who create the behavior changes in the public that lead to improved and healthier communities.
Learn more about these stewardship opportunities at go.umd.edu/UMEstewardships
by Laura Wormuth : Momentum Winter 2022