indigenera

 services:

© Stephen E. Ludwig

  Site reconnoitering

For $35/hr I will walk a site with you and share observations of its characteristics, consider its possible futures, take note of your questions, and generate preliminary questions of my own about what scientific and land management practices or problems might be pursued regarding this site and its relationships with the larger landscape.

If requested and for an additional $25, I will write a one-page-or-less summary of the findings made on this walk and make this available to you.

Site management sketch

For $150, I will meet with you at your home and confer with you about your goals for a site and its surrounding landscape context, resulting in a  "sketch plan," which identifies major ecosystems of the site and their treatment, including a plant list of current species on the site and a list of possible introductions and management interventions over a period of  5 or 10 years and on out from there. This conference will follow at least one site-visit and will create a vision for the site and adjacent lands, addressing the questions that the landscape raises and anticipating as much as is possible the problems that are likely to be encountered.  It will attempt to set the course of the site on a desirable trajectory but can only be a work in progress, not a final answer.

The "sketch plan" should be a joint effort since the site's owners will do the actual management.  I will ask you to produce a written draft of the plan, which I will join with mine.  We will confer by phone to finesse details, and I will submit a written "final" report.

Plant  Consultation 

For $35, I will produce a list of appropriate plants for your site when you make your request by phone and I will suggest sources to be contacted for obtaining plants.  If I accompany you to a nursery to choose plants and/or track down nurseries that have desired species available, I will charge $35/hr.

Public Discussions and Readings

For $150 plus a flat fee of $20 for gas, I will prepare a talk--with or without PowerPoint slides depending on the topic, the site, and equipment availability--on a subject that suits your group's interest and will lead a discussion.  With plenty of advance notice, the group can read an environmental book of their and my choosing, and I will lead discussions of the issues that it raises.

Among the subjects that I am prepared to review are:

"sustainability" and "greening"

 

biodiversity

 

principles of landscape ecology:  the matrix landscape, patches, and corridors

Planning Process Consulting

For a structure of fees to be negotiated, I will consult with groups that are planning to undertake structural interventions in the landscape to foster biodiversity and/or to protect a landscape from despoliation in the future by property-owner agreements such as restrictive covenants or, in some cases, by the transfer of development rights.  I am especially interested in and concerned for landscape features, like streams and small lakes, that cross property boundaries yet have far-reaching implications for the matrix landscape.  Likewise, the conservation of old-growth woods and grasslands across the Valley Heads Moraine is a goal with premier importance for me.

See:  http://www.valleyheadsmoraine.org

photos © Stephen E. Ludwig