Local annual reports from Red Mountain Park, Cahaba River Society and Coosa Riverkeeper

One of the best signs of a healthy non-profit nature organization is their release of an annual report.  Last month, Red Mountain Park, Cahaba River Society and Coosa Riverkeeper posted their 2017 annual reports online.

The numbers from each group is impressive.  Here is a snapshot  of their 2017 accomplishments and links to their annual reports.

Red Mountain Park

Red Mountain Park’s (RMP) annual report is readable, colorful and filled with data, including a list of their donors.  According to RMP:

• In 2017, Red Mountain welcomed an estimated 120,000 people to the park and that number doesn’t include the daily visits to RMP’s popular Remy’s  Dog Park.
• More than 1200 K-12 students toured RMP and learned about Birmingham’s  natural resource and industrial history. An additional 8000 people took field trips, hikes and special outreach events in 2018.
• It was a good year, stewardship-wise at RMP.  Staff and volunteers cleared  over a 100 acres of invasive plants.  They also removed 1000 tires.
• And final snapshot:  RMP welcomed 9000 visitors on their Treetop Adventures program.

Cahaba River Society

This past week, the Cahaba River Society (CRS)  held their annual meeting at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.  As part of that meeting they released their “tip sheet” of 2017 accomplishment.  Here is a sampling of their successful programs:

• CRS’s signature educational program is the Shane Hulsey CLEAN Environmental Education Program.  In 2017, the Society delivered 79 river and classroom programs to 42 different institutions. 1845 people participated this year, increasing the total of participants in the program since 1996 to over 37,000.
• CRS served as a collaborative resource to help implement river protective designs on 6 development projects near the river.
• A couple of new projects were developed and launched in 2017. They include, the Cahaba Blueway water trail in Bibb, Shelby and Jefferson counties. They also launched the “tarobliteration” project aimed at removing taro, a destructive invasive from the Cahaba riverine system.

Coosa Riverkeeper

Coosa Riverkeeper was honored in 2017 by the Alabama Rivers Alliance as the “Group of the Year.”  They were also certified “Platinum” by Guidstar, the most respected non-profit rating organization in the country.

In the area of conservation, 2017 marked the year the Coosa Riverkeeper’s Swim Guide really took off statewide. The program reached over 672,000 folks in the summer over social media through their water quality/swimming alert program.  Along with the social media outreach, Coosa Riverkeeper’s text message subscribers for water quality alerts grew by 220% in 2017.

Bham Now will publish additional annual reports from conservation organizations when they come available. It’s good to see the progress Red Mountain Park, Cahaba River Society and Coosa Riverkeeper made in 2017.

Let’s hope they can continue to build on their important efforts in 2018.