TLA Awarded $1.7 Million to Advance Longleaf Pine Restoration and Conservation
August 18, 2022
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) announced $7.5 million in grants to restore, enhance and protect longleaf pine forests in eight Southeast states. The grants will generate more than $9 million in matching contributions for a total conservation impact of $16.5 million.
The 22 projects were awarded through NFWF’s Longleaf Landscape Stewardship Fund, and will support conservation work in all nine longleaf states.
The Longleaf Alliance is thrilled to be a part of this collaboration to restore longleaf across the range, specifically facilitating four projects in this year’s grant slate, totaling over $1.7 million in support of the Fort Stewart/Altamaha landscape in Georgia, the Gulf Coastal Plain Ecosystem Partnership landscape in Alabama and Florida, and the Sewee Landscape Conservation Cooperative and SoloACE Longleaf Partnership landscapes in South Carolina. Our partners are pivotal to the success of these projects, and we look forward to getting started.
Advancing Longleaf Restoration and Management in the Fort Stewart/Altamaha Area (GA)
Fort Stewart/Altamaha partners will develop a conservation plan for the Fort Stewart/Altamaha Longleaf Partnership, engage private landowners through
outreach and technical assistance, and support longleaf pine habitat management and reforestation benefitting the red-cockaded woodpecker, Bachman’s sparrow, gopher tortoise and associated fauna species. Partners will implement 17,250 acres of prescribed fire, remove encroaching hardwoods and thin pine stands to improve habitat on 2,225 acres and plant 530 acres of longleaf pine.
Longleaf Ecosystem Restoration in the Gulf Coastal Plain
Ecosystem (AL, FL)
The Longleaf Alliance's Ecosystem Support Teams and the Gulf Coastal Plain Ecosystem Partnership will focus on improving habitat and conservation of several rare species in the Gulf Coastal Plain Ecosystem, such as the red-cockaded woodpecker, gopher tortoise, and Bachman’s sparrow. The project will improve more than 181,000 acres of longleaf pine habitat through prescribed burns, control of invasive species, and plantings of longleaf pine and groundcover, and will reach 900 landowners in Alabama and Florida with education and technical assistance.
Longleaf and Bottomland Hardwood Restoration in the
South Lowcountry-ACE Basin (SC)
This project will facilitate planting 1,050 acres of longleaf pine and improve management on an additional 2,200 acres of existing longleaf habitat with prescribed fire and mid-story hardwood removal on public and private lands within the South-Lowcountry and ACE Basin in South Carolina. Project partners will conserve working forests with conservation easements, provide outreach and technical assistance to private landowners, and restore populations of gopher tortoises releasing up to 100 juvenile tortoises on restored habitat.
Sewee Longleaf Ecosystem Restoration and Landowner
Outreach (SC)
Sewee Longleaf Conservation Cooperative partners will restore, manage and conserve more than 4,500 acres of longleaf pine and bottomland hardwood forest in the South Carolina Coastal Plain, north of Charleston. The project will provide public and private landowner outreach and financial assistance for longleaf establishment, prescribed burning, and working forest conservation easements, benefitting northern bobwhite, Carolina gopher frog and Bachman’s sparrow.