2024 Annual Meeting

David George

16 March 2024

On March 2, the NCBP held its annual meeting at William B. Umstead State Park. We had accomplished a great deal over the last year, including the launch of new websites for tardigrades and reptiles, and the creation of three standing committees. The following is a recap of what was discussed at the meeting.

Finance and Governance Committee (Carol Tingley)

Carol gave an update on the NCBP’s finances. We still have a small amount of money on hand - enough to pay our minimal annual costs and potentially fund some special projects. She also gave a rundown of the updates to the NCBP’s articles of association, with the main changes being:

Clarification of the voting process for adding new members, new websites, and deciding other business
New clauses required by our tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status
Funding of the NCBP through donations, contracts, and grants
Formalizing the committee structure

The changes will be voted on by the membership by email in the near future.

Education and Outreach Committee (David George)

I gave an update on our education and outreach efforts over the past year, including a tour of the new website, which still needs content from some members and taxonomic groups. I also outlined some potential opportunities for 2024, including:

BugFest
State Parks Bioblitz
Moth night events
Nature programs organized by Tracy Feldman, Brian Bockhahn and other members

We were pleased to have Ann Robertson as a guest at the meeting. She provided an update on the recently launched Northwest Piedmont Master Naturalist Program with Ken Bridle and Chris Marsh. The ultimate goal is a statewide master naturalist program, which many states already have in place. Ann discussed ways the NCBP could collaborate with the master naturalist program, including providing advice and instruction, and how the program’s naturalists could support our work.

Science Committee (Steve Hall)

Steve discussed the role of the science committee, which will have three primary functions:

Selection and planning of surveys
Review of special projects
Peer-reviewed publication of NCBP reports

A major focus of the committee will be organizing the NCBP’s survey efforts, and Steve outlined the criteria for selection of survey sites, including:

Intrinsic interest for biodiversity (including the existence of previous survey data for comparison)
Strong conservation interest
Existence of partners who can provide support and take on long-term conservation projects based on the results of the survey
Potential for funding and/or other support
Accomplishment of goals within a 2-year framework

Steve described the proposed NCBP survey projects for 2024:

Chatham County biodiversity inventory - The NCBP will work with the NC NHP on this survey of Chatham County habitats, including surveying lichens on the Rocky River and moths at White Pines Nature Preserve.
Monitoring the recovery of oak-scrub moths from prescribed burns in the Sandhills
Mapping the rich dry oak-hickory habitat at Hollow Rock Nature Park in Durham
Reconnaissance survey of fire-maintained seepage habitats in the Sandhills and Uwharries

NC Fund for Biodiversity (Cecil Frost)

Cecil gave some background of the 26 units of the NCDA preserves system, which were chosen because they had federal endangered plant species and had potential to be centers of biodiversity. He said that if we had the knowledge, we could rank all terrestrial species in each taxonomic group, from those of the most fire-dependent habitats to the most fire-free. He passed out a handout from a recent paper (Rosenberg et al. 2019) showing mass decline in American birds over that past 47 years, with fire-dependent grassland birds losing 53% of their numbers. He pointed out the cascade of biodiversity loss that has come with elimination of natural fire: without fire to maintain sunny habitats, the grass-forb layer that produces seeds and edible plants is lost; without that layer most insect diversity is lost; without insects, the 90% of birds that need insects to feed their young are lost.

Cecil and Carol Tingley talked about the new endowment, called NC Fund for Biodiversity, just created in the previous week by an initial gift of $25,000. The Fund is owned jointly by NCBP and the NC Prescribed Fire Council (NC PFC)—an agency dedicated to restoration of fire-maintained habitats. Carol talked about how the fund will be managed by the NC Community Foundation, itself a 510(c)(3) nonprofit who manages investments and annual payout of the interest earned, for over 1200 nonprofits in NC. Carol said the NCBP’s Finance and Governance Committee would handle the fund and would set up a meeting with the NCPFC to work out an MOU between the two groups and talk about how to grow the fund.