  Ecologist Dee Malone will present this free slide show on two consecutive evenings:
Carbondale, Wednesday, March 17
Dos Gringos Burritos, in the La Fontana Plaza on Highway 133. The presentation starts at 7 p.m., and food and drink can be purchased beforehand. Hosted by the Wilderness Workshop.
Aspen, Thursday, March 18
Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES), at 7:30 p.m. Free tea and cookies will be available beforehand. Hosted by WW and ACES. Fens are peat-accumulating wetlands that receive their water from surrounding mineral soil and only develop where a constant flow of groundwater saturates soils and maintains anoxic conditions. In Colorado, they can occur anywhere in the subalpine zone (above roughly 8,800 ft.) where enough ground water emerges to perennially saturate the soil.
Although fens occupy only a tiny percentage of the landscape, they provide important wetland ecosystem functions including water quality functions, carbon and water storage, wildlife habitat, and biodiversity. Because fens take thousands of years to develop, they are essentially irreplaceable. Because of the uniqueness, importance and vulnerability of fens in our region, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has set a goal that every “reasonable effort” should be made to avoid impacting fen habitat. As a result of increasing threats, there is an urgent need to locate and evaluate all functioning fens. Dee Malone is involved in a process being conducted by the Colorado National Heritage Program and the U.S. Forest Service to inventory and assess fens in the White River National Forest.
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