The Menominee County and Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin’s Invasive Species Management Plan (ISMP) is a strategy for controlling invasive species that are already present in the county and avoiding the introduction of those with the potential to invade. The ISMP serves as a plan to engage local, state, and federal government programs, lake districts, lake associations, citizen volunteers, and non-profit groups in the common goal of sustaining Menominee’s natural resources.
Human activity and environmental changes that affect the success of invasive species are ever-changing, therefore a management plan must be adaptive to include new threats as they emerge. The last ISMP to be approved by the County and Tribe was in 2014. The Connecting Our Waters program is in the process of updating the Menominee County/Tribe Invasive Species Management Plan through partnership with the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin (MITW), Menominee County Department of Land Conservation, Forestry, and Zoning, and the Timberland Invasives Partnership (TIP).
Updates to the plan include: new partners with the capacity to create a holistic approach to invasive species management, identification of new and expanding populations of invasive species in Menominee and the surrounding counties, additional education and outreach programs to involve the community in invasive species prevention, and innovative control methods that reflect improved understanding of invasive species management strategies.
TIP Coordinator, Alix Bjorklund says, “Although it’s a unique challenge to make a plan cohesive when dealing with so many levels of invasive species management, updating the Menominee County ISMP is a worthwhile process. We hope to present a product that will be concise, informative, and relatively easy to adapt. With these goals in mind, we feel the ISMP will be well received by all entities involved in invasive species management.”
Article written by Anna Bartsch, AIS Coordinator – Shawano & Menominee Counties
