PARENT SESSION
Poster Session: Early Detection, Early Assessment, and Rapid Response
Wednesday, November 5, 2003, 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Global Ballroom

National Park Service, Exotic Plant Management Teams (EPMT's).

Jameson, Lisa^*,1, Florez, Luis², Prosser, Chad³, ¹ National Park Service-National Capital Region, Washington, DC, USA² National Park Service-Chihuahuan Desert/Southern Shortgrass Prairie, Carlsbad, NM, USA³ National Park Service-Northern Great Plains, Medora, SD, USA

ABSTRACT- The EPMT's created in 2000 are a new resource managment tool, modeled after the approach to fight wildfires. The NPS EPMT's marked their first full year of operation in 2000 with a substaintial list of accomplishments. They identified, treated, inventoried, or monitired more than 100 high-priority plant species on 17,000 acres and eradicated six species of exotic plants for park lands. EPMT's are also building the technical capacity to meet the growing demand for information and technical resources to manage exotic plants in natural areas. This poster is a retrospective on the first years of the Teams, describing program design, implementation, contracting, parterships and new technical capabilities.

Key words: Park, National, Service, EPMT