By Nick Durham

 Blog Post 1

I will be covering the Urban Ecology Center and their land stewardship team's role in combating terrestrial invasive species. The Urban Ecology Center is a local or micro-scale actor in governance who's stated goals are: to provide outdoor science education for urban youth, to protect and use public natural areas making them safe accessible and vibrant, to preserve and enhance these natural areas and their surrounding waters, to promote community by offering resources that support learning, volunteerism, stewardship, recreation and camaraderie, and to practice and model environmentally responsible behaviors.

The EEC traces its roots to 1991, when a group of concerned citizens were motivated to restore and protect Riverside Park in Milwaukee due to the fact that government and state actors had neglected the park and utterly failed in their environmental governance of the area. They have locations at Riverside Park, Washington Park and Menomonee Valley. The Urban Ecology Center's land stewardship program presently works on 70 acres of urban land, utilizing hundreds of volunteers in an effort to combat invasive species such as garlic mustard, Canada thistle, burdock, honeysuckle, and buckthorn.

The EEC is a remarkable success story in micro-scale governance and citizen science. Their efforts have successfully reclaimed hundreds of acres of critically under managed urban land in the Milwaukee River corridor and elsewhere.

Sources:

http://urbanecologycenter.org/about-us/mission.html 
http://urbanecologycenter.org/about-us/history.html
http://urbanecologycenter.org/what-we-do/land-stewardship.html