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PEOPLE
Brannon Knight – The Orianne Society
Joe Lemeris – South Carolina State Park Service
What is your background, and where do you work? I went to Telfair County High School in McCrae, Georgia – just down the road from my preserve. I went to Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton and got a Bachelors of Natural Resource Management with a focus on Wildlife. I work for the Orianne Society as Director of Land Management. How did you get started in longleaf? Mainly it began with fire. I was dragging a torch at 12 or 13 years old. Fire is such an important part of longleaf; they go hand in hand. What inspires you about longleaf ecosystems? For me everything happens at a ground level. So much inspires me from a cultural standpoint to an ecological value. The main satisfaction is putting down fire during the right time of year and seeing the fruits of your labor in the fall. Really, just everything. Where do you see opportunities for young folks to work in longleaf? Fire is huge. The next generation is important. Most of the people into fire are older and closer to retirement; the next generation must be serious about fire. What is the biggest challenge you see with longleaf restoration, and what can your generation bring to the table to solve it? That’s easy; understory restoration that’s associated with longleaf restoration. That’s the pillar in longleaf restoration that’s not understood well and can be overlooked. What one change, if made, could increase interest and engagement with longleaf restoration in young conservation leaders? Right now, I think more job opportunities, more permanent jobs. We hire seasonals but can’t always keep them around. Where is your favorite longleaf site, and why? Reese Thompson’s place [in Wheeler County, Georgia] because it’s special and it’s the woods I first walked in and saw about the most intact site. It was my first experience in seeing what the woods were meant to look like.
What is your background, and where do you work? I grew up in Enfield, Connecticut, a suburb of Hartford. I received my Bachelors in Ecology and Conservation Biology from Boston University in Massachusetts, and my Master of Environmental Management from Duke University in North Carolina. I am currently the Senior Biologist for the South Carolina State Park Service. I work statewide on resource management projects across our 47 state parks and historic sites. How did you get started in longleaf? Coming from New England, I didn’t have much experience with longleaf pine ecosystems until moving to North Carolina for graduate school, where I learned about fire ecology, the benefits of fire on habitats across the southeast, and the integral role of fire within longleaf ecosystems. Since then, most of what I’ve learned has been through direct experience working to restore longleaf within South Carolina State Parks, as well as seeking advice from other partners who work in the longleaf landscape. Taking several of LLA’s Academy courses also gave me a huge amount of fantastic information to guide our restoration efforts! What inspires you about longleaf ecosystems? It always amazes me just how diverse longleaf ecosystems can be, even when at first glance it might just look like pines and grasses. Once you start looking closer, it becomes clear just how many plant and animal species cohabitate, and it all revolves around fire. Where do you see opportunities for young folks to work in longleaf? I can see a large need for more educational/advocacy programs surrounding longleaf pine ecosystems directed towards private lands, as well as the continued need to increase the number of qualified/certified people for burn crews within longleaf ecosystems. And of course, new relevant research is always needed to guide land management within the longleaf range.
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What is the biggest challenge you see with longleaf restoration, and what can your generation bring to the table to solve it? One of the biggest challenges to longleaf restoration (and burning in general across the range), is the massive increase in urban and suburbanization as more and more people move to southeastern states, making it harder to burn without running into smoke or wildland-urban interface issues. To get the most amount of public support, restoration needs to not only be about bringing back threatened species and ecosystems, but equally about how restoring longleaf can reduce hazardous fuels to protect people’s homes from catastrophic wildfire. What one change, if made, could increase interest and engagement with longleaf restoration in young conservation leaders? I think in general, there aren’t enough easily-accessible examples of intact or ‘restored’ longleaf stands where future conservation leaders can be inspired to conserve the ecosystem. If it were possible to increase the number of demonstration sites closer to where people live, there might be more young conservationists gaining understanding for the importance of longleaf ecosystems. Where is your favorite longleaf site, and why? One site that’s near and dear to me has to be our longleaf pine forests at Cheraw State Park in Chesterfield County. South Carolina State Parks has been working to restore longleaf at Cheraw for almost 10 years, and though we’ve still got plenty of work to do, the results so far have improved the forest dramatically. Just ask the red-cockaded woodpecker population – they’ve over tripled in number of active clusters since we started restoration work, from 4 to 14!
Kacie Bauman – National Wild Turkey Federation What is your background, and where do you work? I grew up on a small cattle farm in southeast Missouri. Early in the mornings or late into the afternoons I helped with the cattle and various other animals on the farm. It developed in me a passion for caring for domestic animals and conservation of wildlife. Later on, I