2013

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) is seeking proposals to expand, enhance and accelerate longleaf pine ecosystem restoration across longleaf pine’s historical range.

Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell paid a visit to South Carolina recently where she touted local efforts to conserve longleaf pine habitat and cited the project as an example of why full funding by Congress is needed for the Land & Water Conservation Fund.

Thanks to efforts by Clay Ware, Longleaf Pine Recovery Coordinator for USFWS, the "well-oiled restoration machine" known as America's Longleaf has been profiled in Fish & Wildlife News, a national publication that reaches thousands of natural resource professionals.

The Longleaf Partnership Council gathered again on October 22-23 in conjunction with the national convention of the Society of American Foresters in Charleston, SC.

The Longleaf Partnership Council is eagerly pursuing a remarkable opportunity to accelerate longleaf ecosystem restoration while also contributing to the restoration of the Gulf Coast and the revitalization of its economy.

This is the first in a series of interviews of longleaf leaders from across the range who, along with their organizations, are making uniquely important contributions to the America’s Longleaf Restoration Initiative. Mike Black is the Forestry Coordinator for the National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative (NBCI) and in October 2013 will take the reins as the Chair of the Longleaf Partnership Council.

At the request of America's Great Outdoors, America's Longleaf Restoration Initiative recently held a webinar to share lessons learned and helpful insights with other teams working across the country on landscape level restoration projects. Participants from the Northern Forests of New England, the Crown of the Continent in the northern Rockies and the Southwest Deserts all joined in for a lively discussion on the challenges of mounting restoration efforts at large, multi-state scales.

Planting densities for longleaf have been the subject of many conversations among foresters, wildlife biologists and landowners for several years. To address the situation, the Longleaf Partnership Council (LPC) developed a White Paper on Longleaf Pine Planting Density (2016) and Fact Sheet, providing landowners a discussion of the potential benefits and drawbacks of a range of planting densities.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Trust for Public Land and landowner M.C. Davis are partnering to conserve 20,850 acres of critical habitat land east of Eglin Air Force Base after being awarded $1.75 million from the U.S. Department of Defense as part of the 2013 REPI Challenge.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in cooperation with and input from the States of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and South Carolina, and the Wildlife Diversity Committee of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, recently released a Range-Wide Conservation Strategy for the Gopher Tortoise. The purpose is to guide public and private partners in proactive conservation of the tortoise, which is a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act across most of its range.

Not only is longleaf being successfully restored on the Osceola National Forest, the restoration efforts are generating significant positive returns for the broader economy according to a recent study. The Florida project has received considerable attention from conservationists for its ambitious goals of doubling prescribed fire acreage on the Forest, reducing fuel loads and restoring groundcover. Now impressive economic benefits have also been documented at the local, state and national scales.

The biannual meeting of the Longleaf Partnership Council was conducted in Mobile on April 25-26. The Council meeting focused on range-wide topics (e.g., how the RESTORE Act prompted by the Gulf oil spill might offer longleaf opportunities) as well as technical team reports (e.g., recommendations on longleaf seedling stocking density) and, last but certainly not least, updates from partners around the region.

Somewhere down the road, when the history of longleaf restoration is written, the year 2012 will almost certainly be seen as a significant milestone. Last year, after decades of steady decline in longleaf, the USFS Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) first determined that the decline had been halted and, indeed, that acres of longleaf dominated forests had actually increased in the previous 10 years.