As the only organization with a mission to organize and represent the interests of Rhode Island’s naturalists, RINHS is often called on to provide a “natural history” or a “scientific citizen” perspective on boards and committees. RINHS participation in State committees is sometimes called for in statue; sometimes organizations seek it out on their own. This little-known activity is one of RINHS’s most effective means of contributing to scientifically informed environmental conservation and management.

Our latest collaboration is with a host of other organizations agencies to create a series of environmental condition indicators so someone from the general public could quickly gain a better sense of how it was going out there. This collaboration is called Watershed Counts and RINHS is a founding member. There is a great need for obscure scientific info and histrionics in the media to be digested into something that any concerned member of the public can hang his/her hat on. Watershed Counts will hopefully grow from 2011′s successful beginning to meet that need annually, not generating new data, but taking all that’s already out there but languishing, and getting it into the public discourse for all our benefit. Visit the Watershed Counts website to learn more.

Some Past and Present Boards and Committees with RINHS Representation:

• Narragansett Bay Estuary Program Management Committee
• Narragansett Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve Landscape Management Planning Committee
• Rhode Island Environmental Monitoring Collaborative
• Coalition for Water Security
• RI DEM Artificial Reef Monitoring Plan Advisory Committee (ARMPA)
• Northeast Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force
• Invasive Plant Atlas of New England

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