The US Department of Agriculture’s Forest Services has announced $16.2 million to restore forest lands in tribal, state, and private sites in an effort to boost nature-based resilience to climate change, as part of its Landscape Restoration Programme.
The USDA has earmarked the cash to cover a number of short- and long-term climate adaptation challenges that the US is currently experiencing.
“Threats to forests like wildfires, insects, and disease do not stop at jurisdictional boundaries, which is why these investments in healthy and resilient forests extend beyond boundary lines,” said Randy Moore, chief of the forest service in a statement.
“These grants are critical for improving the nation’s forests that provide a range of environmental, social, and economic benefits to the American people.”
The total pot of cash is split between 11 projects taking place on tribal lands and 53 landscape-scale projects being implemented through non-for-profits including wildfire reduction projects across the West, restoring longleaf pine in the Southeast, and combatting invasive species and restoring water quality in the Northeast and Midwest.
The announcement marks the first time the Forest Service has made grants directly available to federally recognized Tribes and Alaska Native Corporations through its Landscape Restoration Program.
The funds announced on Tuesday include $3 mln allocated to restore tribal lands. The selected tribal projects are:
- Kuskokwim Corporation for the Kuskokwim Climate Resilient Forestry and Harvest program, Alaska – $295,200
- Kenaitze Indian Tribe for the land improvement and supportive services, Alaska – $300,000
- Seneca Nation of Indians for Ode:ka’ for creating biodiversity through indigenous methods of prescribed fire, New York – $300,000
- Pueblo of Isleta for Isleta East Mountains fuels reduction, New Mexico – $277,076
- White Mountain Apache Tribe Mount Baldy fuels reduction, Arizona – $300,000
- Coeur d’Alene Tribe Hangman Creek Watershed Restoration, Idaho – $298,466
- Hoopa Valley Tribe hazardous fuels reduction, California – $298,466
- Kalispel Tribe of Indians for improved forest management through biochar air curtain burners, Washington – $122,434
- Pechanga Band of Indians restoration of goldspotted oak borer-affected coast live oaks on the Pechanga Reservation, California – $298,846
- Yurok Tribe for a forest inventory project on the Yurok Reservation – $299,190
- Redwood Valley Rancheria Little River Band of Pomo Indians for landscape-scale restoration, California – $208,788
By Tom Woolnough – tom@carbon-pulse.com
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