Invasive Plant Program Strategic Plan: 2016

Biological Resources Division Invasive Plant Program; Denver Service Center

National parks are facing new and diverse challenges, including impacts to natural and cultural resources from invasive species, climate change and other stressors. These impacts are exacerbated by constraints to human resources and funding. The National Park Service (NPS) is focused on addressing such challenges through innovative actions to restore, preserve, and manage resources in an unimpaired condition, providing present and future generations with the opportunity to steward, benefit from, and enjoy them. The spread of invasive species is a major factor contributing to undesirable landscape level change and ecosystem instability. The NPS is working to manage invasive species in park units through a suite of national and local programs. The NPS Invasive Plant Program (IPP), which includes the Exotic Plant Management Team (EPMT) Program, provides leadership to individual parks, regions, and the national park system in invasive1 plant management, restoration, and landscape level protection. Invasive plant management and restoration support is provided by the IPP and the Biological Resources Division (BRD) through staff expertise, assistance, funding, and guidance to parks, and by representing NPS issues and concerns at all levels related to invasive plant issues. The program is positioned to address specific biological stress factors such as invasive species, fragmentation, climate change, and other emerging issues, while working within ecosystem management and ecological contexts. In addition to NPS staff, the program collaborates with public and private partners on complex and emerging invasive plant issues, including climate change and infrastructure development (e.g., development of a national Early Detection and Rapid Response (EDRR) framework. The core of this strategic plan is the identification of goals and actions that will optimize the effectiveness of the program while increasing program and park capacity and leveraging of human and fiscal resources with other state, federal, and private entities. This strategic plan sets the course for the IPP by articulating a mission, vision, goals, and actions for the next ten years with near-term goals that will be reported on and revisited annually. The plan will guide annual work planning and major projects and identify and help prioritize program funding needs and initiatives. The plan was developed by NPS park, regional, and Washington Office (WASO) stakeholders, and partners. It complements the Biological Resources Division (BRD) Strategic Plan (2016), the Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Framework, and Director’s Order 100.

Invasive Plant Program Strategic Plan: 2016

Collections