MLK Day of Service

Tuesday, 20 January 2009 16:49

This year I  returned to the Pope Branch regional park for the third year in a row to help with trash removal and English Ivy Mitigation. 

This annual cleanup is sponsored by the Pope Branch Park Restoration Alliance, a collaboration between Groundwork Anacostia River, the Earth Conservation Corps, Casey Trees, the Sierra Club, DC Department of Parks and Recreation, and the newly  created DC Department of the Environment.

This year we crossed over Minnesota ave to begin cleaning further up into the park.  Click here to see the area of the park we worked in.  

 The volunteer turnout was great.  By 10am we had at least 50 people working up and down the park picking up trash.

Pope Branch,like most of D.C's stream corridoor parks, suffers from edge effect. The narrow nature of these parks allow invasive species to not only enter the park, but thrive in the sunlight streaming in from the edges. 

As a result, Pope Branch, along with the vast majority of D.Cs parks, is infested with English Ivy.  While seemingly benign growing in a English garden or trimmed into a topiary, English Ivy is wreaking havoc on our parks and natural systems. 

Escaped from adjacent landowners or its seeds spread by birds, English Ivy enters into the park and runs wild.  Covering the forest floor it forms vast  "Ivy Barrens" that choke out native species.  Whats worst, the ivy climbs up trees and slowly envelops the crown, smothering the tree and eventually killing it.   Loss of tree canopy has a major impact on D.C's riparian forests and it one of the leading causes of climate change globally.