Native plants for your yard

Thank you to everyone who joined us on Friday for "Green" and a great presentation from Shelly Kremer about building native species habitat in your own yards on Saipan. There were many requests at the movie for more information to be sent about your home litmus test for bird habitat and plants that you can place in your yard, so we have compiled the following information:

Chichirika, Naabak, Rufous fantail (Rhipidura rufifrons)

The litmus test can help you figure out if your yard has sufficient habitat for birds. 

If you see a lot of TREE SPARROWS in your yard, your native bird habitat is BAD.

If you see a lot of STARLINGS, BRIDLED WHITE-EYES, and HONEYEATERS, your habitat is OKAY.

If you see a lot of RUFOUS FANTAILS and GOLDEN WHITE-EYES, your habitat is GOOD.

Don't worry! If you scored low on the litmus test, you can plant the following trees to improve your habitat and attract more birds to your yard:

Nanaso (Scaevola taccada) 

• Gao Gao, Tiger Claw
• Sumak
• Ahgoa, False Elder*
• Agetelang
• Lulujut
• Alum
• Aploghating*
• Nunu, Banyan
• Papaya
• Guava
• Nanaso
• Manzanita

Remember, some of these trees (like papaya) grow very quickly, or you can check our local nurseries or CNMI Forestry for some older saplings to plant. 

If you're looking for more information on native and non-native plants check out:

CNMI Forestry: call 256-3320, stop by the nursery in Kagman, or visit http://www.cnmiforestry.gov.mp/component/content/?view=featured

University of Guam's "Plants of Guam" website, and click on "Plants of Guam" at the top http://university.uog.edu/cals/people/

Even though this is a Guam-specific website, most of the same plants are in the CNMI.

Don't forget about our lending library if you have a community group that would like to host a film showing, and stay tuned for information about our November FFF night of local short films on November 2nd!

"GREEN" this Friday!

Happy October! As our rainy season slowly winds down, First Friday Films is taking you off of Saipan this week to learn about life in another tropical region. Please join us this Friday, October 5th at 6:30pm at American Memorial Park's theatre for the film "Green" and to learn about orangutans and habitat loss in Indonesia.

"Green" is about the rainforests of Indonesia, the life that it holds, and the industries that are trying to destroy it. The film silently follows the life of a female orangutan who is the victim of deforestation and resource exploitation. Although this film is an emotional journey of Green's final days, it also presents the treasures of rainforest biodiversity, which are swiftly being eliminated by logging and land clearing for palm oil plantations.  "Green" makes the point that in order to save the Indonesian rainforests, we must choose to change our consumer habits so as not to be a part of the destruction. Then we can make a significant impact on the industries behind the destruction and make them change.

Before the film Shelly Kremer, a terrestrial biologist who has worked on Saipan for many years, will give a short talk about habitat loss in general and how it is affecting species in the CNMI. Although Saipan's threats are very different in nature and scale from those of Indonesia, there are still a lot of commonalities.

First Friday Films is a partnership between American Memorial Park, the Division of Environmental Quality, Coastal Resources Management and the Humanities Council with support from other organizations. This particular films is sponsored by CRM. As always, our film events are free and open to the public. For planning purposes, this event will run about 70 minutes. Although the film is not vulgar or explicit in any way, the content is very emotional and the film is silent. Therefore, parents might want to carefully consider whether or not to bring young children (under 13).