Talladega-Mountain Longleaf Conservation Partnership (TMLCP)

Mountain Longleaf LIT Initiates Conservation Planning Process

By Alex Varner, The Nature Conservancy

The Talladega-Mountain Longleaf Conservation Partnership (TMLCP) met this past fall for its first of two workshops to develop a more focused conservation plan. The plan will help identify priority areas for longleaf restoration and provide great clarity to the strategies needed to increase the progress of restoration. Twenty-nine team members were present for this first workshop.

The majority of the workshop had team members gathered around maps refining focus area boundaries and listing short and long-term restoration acreage goals. Workshop participants also discussed planning targets that divide longleaf pine restoration into either public or private lands and categorizes restoration stage as maintain/improve or restore. Lastly, the barriers to restoring longleaf pine were identified during the workshop. These will be ranked and used as the starting point to develop strategies at the next workshop in early or mid-January 2018.

The TMLCP partners are again happy to have been selected to receive a 2017 National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Longleaf Stewardship Fund Grant. This recent award of $205,452.86 will be instrumental in longleaf restoration throughout the TMLCP. This award will fund 447 acres of longleaf establishment and improve 17,700 acres of existing longleaf habitat with prescribed fire. Funds will be used to support a seasonal prescribed fire crew and help the development of a Conservation Plan. We would like to thank the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Longleaf Stewardship Fund public and private partners for their important support for longleaf restoration within the TMLCP. 

IMAGE CAPTION:

Conservation Planning workshop.  Photo by Alex Varner.

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