Thursday, March 4, 2004

by Greg Leiserson
News Editor

Completed in December 2003 and recently made public, the
“Conservation and Stewardship Plan for the Crum Woods of Swarthmore
College” performs an inventory of the physical, biological and human
uses of the Crum Woods, prioritizes protection efforts, studies the
threats the woods face, and makes recommendations for future actions
relating to the woods. The report was developed by the local firms
Natural Lands Trust and Continental Conservation and is now available
on reserve in both the McCabe and Cornell libraries.

The college’s Crum Woods Stewardship Committee commissioned the
report in the Spring of 2001 as part of its mission to ensure that the
woods are “restored and managed to yield the maximum sustainable
pedagogical benefits and meet the highest realistically achievable
standards of environmental quality” as stated in the report’s
introduction. Throughout the Spring semester the CWSC is meeting to
study the contents of the report and make a final recommendation to the
college community. CWSC members hope to be able to make a public
presentation of their recommendations later this semester. The
recommendations of the report itself are not officially endorsed by the
CWSC at this time.

Engineering Professor Arthur McGarity, chair of CWSC, commented that
while the impact on the majority of students will only be to make them
“more aware of the woods and the issues faced there” there are “certain
faculty and administrators” who could be more directly affected by the
committee’s recommendations. Throughout the report reference is made to
the varied uses the woods serve for the college’s biology classes, one
area in which recommendations might be felt.

To implement “a conservation and stewardship plan for the Crum
Woods,” the authors of the report argue, the college must “establish
their role, [and] give the Woods ‘standing’ within the College
community.” In the past “basic stewardship tasks” including trash
removal and trail maintenance have been neglected.

The report also recommends that the college dedicate additional
resources to hire a full-time manager for the woods possessing an
“academic grounding in ecology or forest management, preferably at the
master’s level” and “practical, hands-on experience in managing natural
areas.”

Cited in the report are three specific examples of problems that
could have been averted with a manager dedicated to the Crum. During
maintenance work in 2001 contractors employed by the Philadelphia
Suburban Water Company cut down a number of large oak trees in Natural
Areas, parts of the Crum that together are “ecologically significant at
a regional scale…some of the best remaining natural areas in the
Philadelphia metropolitan area.” Second, the composting facility has no
physically delineated boundaries at the site and operations in the last
decade have spilled to an area about an acre larger than that intended.
Finally, a recently completed plan including new playing fields, an
access road, and a parking area for Smedley Park that “if built without
College approval…would be in clear violation of the lease” under
which Delaware County has used the disconnected portion of the Crum in
Springfield Township as a nature reserved since 1941, were discovered
only by chance.

The report makes a number of additional recommendations including
the creation of a “Crum Woods oversight committee” that would “oversee
the use and management of the Woods and review proposals for new or
modified uses”, the adoption of “a ‘no net loss’ policy on the total
area of unfragmented forest”, and the beginning of a number of
processes to improve wildlife and stormwater management.

The CWSC’s current opinions are confidential, but issues currently
being discussed include those above as well as possible restrictions on
bike use. Said CWSC chair McGarity, this is “a long-term process, some
things will be easy to do, easy to obtain consensus about, others [will
be] more complicated.”

The committee hopes to have the report available online as well in
the near future, but has encountered some minor technical problems with
the files containing the numerous maps in the report. Upon completion
of their recommendations either later this semester or next, the CWSC
will have completed its charge as established by Provost Jennie Keith
in October, 2000.

*****

At its meeting Saturday, the Board of Managers approved a budget
with a 4.5% increase in comprehensive student charges for the 2004-2005
school year. The college officially announced the decision in a press
release yesterday. The board’s approval of the hike marks the second
year in a row in which tuition plus room and board has increased by
4.5%, with tuition now almost $3,500 higher than it was for the
2002-2003 school year.

Rising costs for faculty and staff salaries, for improvements in
technology, and for library materials were listed as important reasons
for the continued large increases.

On 2/23/2004 the windows of a garage in the 300 block of Vassar
Avenue were discovered broken. It is not known when they were last
intact. Sergeant Stufflet took the report.

*****

* Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune declared a state of emergency
on Wednesday and announced the formation of a committee to oversee
security in the island nation. Earlier in the day rebel leader Guy
Philippe announced that his forces would no longer patrol the streets
of the capital after he received US assurances that international
forces would disarm supporters of former President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide. Previously, Philippe had assumed the role of the country’s
police chief, but has since said he would concede that authority to
interim President Boniface Alexandre. 14 other Caribbean nations
meeting in Jamaica on Wednesday announced that they would not
participate in peacekeeping duties, saying in a statement “the heads of
government [express] dismay and alarm over the events leading to the
departure from office by President Aristide and the ongoing political
upheaval and violence in Haiti.”

* Opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez met with
international observers on Wednesday seeking help in their effort to
recall the President. Opposition organizers submitted more than 3
million signatures in December, but the elections council declared on
Tuesday that only 1.8 million of the signatures were valid. 140,000
were rejected completely, and another 1.1 million were rejected
temporarily, but will be considered valid if the signers contact the
come forward to confirm that they signed the recall. Roughly 2.4
million signatures are required to force a recall vote. According to
CNN.com, elections council director Jorge Rodriguez said on Wednesday
that officials and opposition leaders were negotiating a compromise,
but only on relatively minor details. Since demonstrations began on
Friday, Venezuelan officials say at least seven people have died. The
violence has temporarily ceased, but opposition leaders say that if
they are denied their constitutional rights there will be more unrest.
Another march is scheduled for today in Caracas.

* As expected, Senator John Edwards withdrew from the race for the
Democratic presidential nomination on Wednesday, essentially
guaranteeing Senator John Kerry the nomination. Speaking at a town hall
meeting in Orlando, Kerry declared, “we’re going to reach out to
America on basic common sense, and we’re going to have a conversation
about how we really make this nation of ours stronger and safer and how
we keep the promise to the American people.” Kerry also appointed Jim
Johnson, a Washington businessman and civic leader, to head the search
for a vice presidential running mate. In his withdrawal speech, Senator
Edwards said that “the truth of the matter is John Kerry has
what…matters….And I, for one, intend to do everything in my power
to make him the next president of the United States.” The move
coincides almost perfectly with a sharp increase in the intensity of
the reelection campaign for President George W. Bush which is releasing
the first barrage of television ads on Thursday. The ads will cost
about $4.5 million, a small drop in the bucket of what is expected to
be a record setting fundraising effort that already has raised $140
million.

*****

Mathematics Dept. Topology Film Festival
Science Center 101, 4:30 p.m.

Walking the Way of Peace: Lecture by Herb Walters
LPAC Cinema, 7:30 p.m.

Rotaract Club Movie Night
Science Center 101, 7:30 p.m.

*****

SPORTS UPDATE

Today:
There are no contests scheduled for today.

Tomorrow:
There are no contests scheduled for tomorrow.

*****

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Every exit is an entry somewhere.”
— Tom Stoppard

*****

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