 Bob, what are we doing out here today at Baxter Woods? We're trying to teach people how to become familiar with invasive species and some of the eradication issues, how to, some methodology, and also why we need to do this. What is an invasive species? An invasive species, generally speaking, we're talking about terrestrial invasives. So those are plants, trees and plants that are not native, and native in my estimation is anything that came naturally after the last glacier is a native. Then these are invasive plants or exotic plants that were introduced usually by humans, sometimes by mistake, and then invasive species are plants that cause great harm. They're exotic, but they're also invasive and they cause great harm, where some of the exotic plants are sort of benign, but not harmful. So what we want is you've got to become aware of these things. If you look at the leaves now, you will see a very significant difference. This glossy buckthorn has sort of a rounded leaf. This has a much more of a point on the end of the leaf. So does anybody know what this is? It's not alimony. It's not alimony. It's a trick question. It's some sort of a cherry. It's black cherry, okay? So you can get fooled. What are the negative effects of these invasive species? One of the negative effects is, if we talk about birds, is that whatever fruit they might have is not necessarily good for birds, even though birds will eat it. Just like us eating Twinkies all the time or some other not-so-good food, they don't get the nutritional value that they need, especially if they're going to try and migrate way south. So they need that extra energy. If you have what you think are invasive species on your property, what sort of assessment do you do and can you do to help you figure out what you have and what to do about it? Well, you can either ask a professional, not that there are that many professional people who do it right now, but there are plenty of people who do know about plants, so you can take it to a local garden center or nursery. You can also go online. There's a bunch of different sites. The Cooperative Extension Service has a pretty good site, Main Cooperative Extension, including a whole list of invasive species with pictures and other things. And what kind of things can be done if you have these species in your yard and you decide that you want to get rid of some or all of them? Well, there's a bunch of different things that you can do. You could mold some, you could dig them up. There are even chemical solutions, but what you have to do is sort of make an assessment and decide what's most important to do. What's the worst one, how am I going to deal with it? Do not blow it up, pave it, concrete it, dig it up, bury it under 500 tons of radioactive waste, put black plastic on it, carpet, cardboard, newspaper, a combination of all of the above. It ain't going to work. So it all depends on the species. It can vary from Japanese knotweed, which is also called American bamboo, to honeysuckle, to bittersweet, and they all have different ways of being dealt with. Can you ever get rid of something completely? Well, you may get rid of that actual plant, but one of the problems with invasive species is they overwhelm us with seeds, and often birds will eat them, not get much nutritional value, and then drop those seeds somewhere else. So you have to be aware it has to be a long-term process. Jessica, what organizations are involved here today? We have the Southern Maine Conservation Collaborative, Casco Bay Estuary Partnership, the Casco Bay Island Development Association, Maine Audubon, the City of Portland, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, Maine Island Trail Association. Those are all groups that are part of the steering committee for the Casco Bay Invasive Species Network. In attendance at this event are representatives from a number of other organizations, and I can't list them all because we have a lot. And what are the volunteers here doing? The volunteers here are working to manage the invasive species, the plant invasive species that exist in the park. So behind me are volunteers pulling up various plants, bittersweet, and swallowwort in particular. And why are these organizations involved in trying to do this here in Baxter Woods? Well, one reason is to help clean Baxter Woods, help manage this park and the plants here. Another is to learn what this academy is, one of the main purposes is to educate people who are interested in managing invasive species on their own personal property or on the property that they manage and steward with their organization. One thing I did want to show you, if you don't know what we're trying to kill, we look at the end of this stem, when Amanda cut that off, you look at the outside, you will see that there's a little green couple of holes, yeah, a little hole, but the outside just under the bark, it's green, and that's called the cambium layer. That's the live part of the plant. This project here at Baxter Woods, you're just beginning it, but it's sort of a long-term project because you'll have to keep coming back and back, are you looking for volunteers to work on that? Yeah, I believe the city of Portland with Jeff Tarling has been working on this a lot already, and we are really helping him in his work. This project is something that will go on forever, and I think that volunteers are always welcome to help with this project. And the city of Portland would be, in this case, for Baxter Woods, would be the entity to communicate with. We have a number of organizations, as I mentioned, specifically Land Trusts, who are always looking for volunteers to help with management as well. Oceanside Conservation Trust is a Land Trust here, and they manage properties on islands around the Bay, and they work very heavily on managing invasive species. Main Coast Heritage Trust is another. The Shabeegan Cumberland Land Trust, those are just a few of the Land Trusts represented here. And if people want more information, do they contact each of those organizations? Yes, they can contact each of those organizations. They would have websites. They can go to the website for the Casco Bay Invasive Species Network, which is basically that name, .org, and they'll find on that a list of organizations that are participating in the network. Or they can contact me at the Southern Maine Conservation Collaborative, and I can connect them with any of these organizations or more in the region.