Anyone who has met Doug Britt of Reston knows he has a wealth of information on the creepy, crawly, slimy, majestic, utterly beautiful creatures, insects, and flora that call Reston home. Britt, and the RASER (Reston Association State of the Environment Report) 2020 team, have traipsed nearly every area of Reston s 17.4 square miles in its humid subtropical climate. Britt knows the fastest vertebrate on the planet Earth lives, where else but in Reston, actually Reston Town Center, and it hunts Reston-wide. He can rattle off the names of more than 30 species of mammals seen in Reston, along with 1,588 insect species and 141 arachnids. Those are spiders, daddy longlegs, mites, ticks, and more. Britt is a tad partial to each of the ten species of crustaceans, seven millipedes, and three worms that live the low life in Reston. Love mosquitos? Check out English ivy, according to Britt. They love it too.
December 18, 2020 at 9:45am
The Reston Association’s (RA) Board of Directors listened to a presentation about its surrounding environment as part of the
Doug Britt, a Virginia Master Naturalist and chair of RA’s Environmental Advisory Committee, presented the RASER study update to the board and RA’s members. The update has 18 authors and coauthors that include members of RA’s environmental advisory committee and outside individuals.
The update conforms to RASER’s five objectives listed on RA’s website:
Summarize existing quantitative environmental data for the Reston community in one publicly accessible document.
Establish an environmental baseline that can be reassessed annually to facilitate the identification of environmental trends and to evaluate the efficacy of environmental improvement and conservation programs and initiatives.
December 11, 2020 at 2:30pm
The Reston Annual State of the Environment Report (RASER) will be presented to the Reston Association (RA) during its regular board meeting on Thursday, Dec. 17.
Doug Britt, a Virginia Master Naturalist and chair of RA’s Environmental Advisory Committee, will present the study update and the state of Reston’s environment to the RA board and members.
The comprehensive study is roughly 200 pages long and comes on the heels of more than 1,000 volunteer hours to update the report on its bi-annual basis. The report covers 21 different environmental attributes of the community that includes natural resource maintenance, health of wildlife, air quality, and environmental education and outreach.