FY 2021 Joint Chiefs' Landscape Restoration Project Summaries
New Mexico - Sierra Blanca Restoration Partnership
- Lincoln, Otero, and Chaves counties
- Lincoln National Forest
Located near the picturesque Sierra Blanca Mountain, this project sits in the southern half of Lincoln County and the northern portion of Otero County. It encompasses five HUC 5 watersheds within the Lincoln National Forest, the home of Smokey Bear. Heavy fuel loadings of Pinon-Juniper, Ponderosa Pine, and Mixed Conifer forest contribute to high risk of uncharacteristic wildfire and significant threat to local communities, infrastructure, two adjacent wilderness areas, source water for community water supplies, as well as the congressionally designated Snowy River Cave System. This project will provide for treatment on a combination of private, Tribal, municipal, and Federal lands. Project activities will focus on mechanical fuels reduction, prescribed burning, riparian area restoration, to include mastication in Pinon-Juniper areas with minimal understory. Desired landscape outcomes are improved resilience of firesheds and watersheds, and increased water quality and supply. Ancillary benefits of these outcomes will be enhanced wildlife habitat for several threatened and endangered (T&E) species, and ability to reintroduce native Cutthroat Trout into the local watersheds. Benefits to the community include lowered risk for wildfire, efficiencies and strategic security for water quality/supply, and stimulation of the local economy via enhanced tourism opportunities.
Total FY21 Funding Request: $567,612 (NRCS $238,112 and USFS $329,500)
Partners: Mescalero Apache Tribe, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Village of Ruidoso, NM Conservation Corp, Ecoservants, Trout Unlimited, and New Mexico Department of Game and Fish (NMDGF)
Oregon - Lake County All Lands Restoration Initiative
- Lake County
- Fremont-Winema National Forest
The Lake County All Lands Restoration Initiative is a 402,400-acre landscape located 6 miles north of Lakeview, Oregon. This landscape is important to the rural community of Lakeview for recreation, timber production, and grazing resources. Dominant forest types include dry ponderosa pine and mixed conifer, shrub-steppe, aspen, and meadow. Due to past management practices and fire suppression, there is a need to modify forest structure to reduce the risk of wildfire and improve forest health. The desired landscape-level outcome is to create a resilient fire adapted landscape, while mitigating the threat of high severity wildfire to dry forests, wildlife habitat, water quality, and surrounding communities. To meet these objectives, this project will involve engaging with private landowners, completing silvicultural treatments, and reintroducing fire, while incorporating noxious weed prevention and treatment. Benefits to local communities include increased knowledge, sustaining and contributing to forestry sector jobs through restoration activities, and maintaining a healthy forest for multiple use. Collaboration occurs through the Klamath-Lake Forest Health Partnership (KLFHP).
Total FY21 Funding Request: $2,034,000 (NRCS $839,000 and USFS $1,195,000)
Partners: Lake County Umbrella Watershed Council, Oregon Department of Forestry, Oregon State University Extension, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, Lake County Resources Initiative, and Lake County Cooperative Weed Management Area
Oregon - Buttes to Basins - All Lands Forest Resiliency Project
- Jefferson and Deschutes counties
- Deschutes National Forest
The Buttes to Basins project illustrates the shared stewardship model with diverse partners and mutually identified priorities. The project boundary contains Oregon’s #1 fireshed for cross-boundary community exposure to wildfire. This project will address wildfire risk in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) through forest stand improvement, slash treatment, brush management, prescribed fire, and herbaceous weed treatment. Furthermore, by increasing the pace and scale of underburning on burn units adjacent to private lands, this will complement existing agreements with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Prescribed Fire Training Exchanges (TREX) where cooperative burns provide training that builds robust local capacity for fire management and offers professional fire practitioners a more holistic perspective, all while implementing treatments that support community and landscape objectives. This project will also advance watershed restoration by improving ecological conditions and hydrologic function, and benefit important federally listed species including bull trout, chinook salmon, mid-Columbia steelhead, and Oregon spotted frog, as well as downstream private landowners. Furthermore, this project will improve and enhance habitat for mule deer and northern spotted owl.
Total FY21 Funding Request: $3,273,042 (NRCS $400,000 and USFS $2,873,042)
Partners: Oregon Department of Corrections, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Central Oregon Inter-Governmental Council, and Upper Deschutes Watershed Council and Deschutes Land Trust
Tennessee - East Tennessee Aquatic Habitat for At Risk Species
- 9 counties in eastern Tennessee
- Cherokee National Forest
This project is designed to apply multiple small-scale restorations strategically to achieve landscape scale conservation. It will do this by focusing efforts on 34 high priority catchments within the Cherokee National Forest and adjacent areas within 3 miles of the National Forest boundary. Those streams are assigned priority status because they support at-risk species within upstream pristine National Forest reaches but experience abrupt reductions in habitat and water quality when they cross the National Forest boundary and enter downstream private inholdings subject to a variety of anthropogenic activities. Applying restorations in those areas substantially improves habitat longitudinally and restored reaches are connected directly to at-risk source populations. Priority streams occur in both the North and South zones of Cherokee National Forest. Although that area contains over 2000 catchments in 8 counties, and beneficial projects may be considered, actions in the 34 priority catchments will take precedence because those streams support populations of Brook Trout, hellbenders, Tennessee Dace, and other at-risk aquatic species.
Total FY21 Funding Request: $1,371,394 (NRCS $706,394 and USFS $665,000)
Partners: Johnson County Soil Conservation District, Sullivan County Soil Conservation District, Carter County Soil Conservation District, Washington County Soil Conservation District, Unicoi County Soil Conservation District, Blount County Soil Conservation District, Monroe County Soil Conservation District, McMinn County Soil Conservation District, Polk County Soil Conservation District, Tennessee Division of Forestry, US Fish & Wildlife Service, Trout Unlimited, Southeast Aquatic Resources Partnership, The Nature Conservancy, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation, Conservation Fisheries Inc., Defenders of Wildlife, and Nashville Zoo
Idaho - North Fork Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project
- Lemhi County
- Salmon Challis National Forest
The purpose of the project is to implement fuels reduction treatments in areas threatened by the invasion and continued build-up of cheatgrass on federal and private land. Sources and causes of this build-up include disturbance from wildfire, mining, timber harvest, heavy use by big game, and grazing. Treatments will include ground based and/or aerial herbicide application, re-seeding of native species on federal and private land as well as understory thinning on private land to provide fuel breaks where applicable. The primary goal of this project is to reduce the wildfire threat to at-risk communities, wildfire threat to wildlife habitats of at-risk species, while also protecting and improving localized watershed conditions by reducing fine fuel buildup and controlling further cheatgrass colonization within the area.
Total FY21 Funding Request: $142,000 (NRCS $52,000 and USFS $90,000)
Partners: Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Salmon District, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Idaho Department Fish & Game, Idaho Department of Fish & Game, Lemhi County, Idaho Governor’s Office of Species Conservation (OSC), and the Mule Deer Foundation
Alabama and Florida -Sustaining Gains in Longleaf Pine Restoration Through Coordinated Cogongrass Control
- 4 counties in southern Alabama and 2 counties in northwestern Florida
- Conecuh National Forest
This project seeks to protect and sustain extensive partner investments in maintaining fire regimes, rare species habitat, and watershed health as part of successful longleaf pine ecosystem restoration on a project landscape that encompasses 1.2 million acres surrounding ecologically significant public lands in south-central Alabama and northwest Florida. The project area represents the heart of the largest significant geographic area identified in America’s Longleaf Range-wide Conservation Plan. It is the core landscape targeted by the Gulf Coastal Plain Ecosystem Partnership (GCPEP), a mature partnership coordinated by The Longleaf Alliance with demonstrated and sustained success at its mission of maintaining and restoring longleaf pine ecosystems. Yet, this mission and past and future investments in this landscape are existentially threatened by cogongrass, one of the world’s top-ten worst weeds, due to its high-density growth, high burning intensity, poor value as wildlife habitat, and difficulty of control. This project seeks to complement existing investments in restoring fire regimes, rare species habitat, and watershed health by increasing capacity for cogongrass control, especially on private land. This project will support a landscape-focused, coordination-intensive partnership that ensures control treatments are prioritized and implemented across boundaries of public and private land, rights-of-way, and State lines.
Total FY21 Funding Request: $279,500 (NRCS $162,000 and USFS $117,500)
Partners: Alabama Forestry Commission, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Florida Forest Service, Covington County Soil and Water Conservation District, Alabama Department of Transportation, Florida Department of Transportation, Covington County AL, Escambia County AL, Okaloosa County FL, Santa Rosa County FL, Northwest Florida Water Management District, US Navy, and Auburn University
Puerto Rico - Ecosystem Resilience Through Conservation Practices
- 22 municipalities in eastern Puerto Rico
- El Yunque National Forest
This project will work collaboratively at a landscape-scale level to increase conservation actions on private lands to improve ecosystem function and health in eastern Puerto Rico while improving economic and ecological services for local communities that were impacted by the 2017 hurricane season. This project will implement conservation practices on 30 non-industrial private forest and agricultural properties to promote connectivity between private and public lands. This project will also conserve and protect targeted species through biological corridor establishment, wildlife habitat improvement, and establishment of new populations of threatened and endangered (T&E) plant species. Furthermore, the rare native tree Eugenia haematocarpa will be propagated and planted at El Yunque National Forest to increase the current populations and improve habitat conditions. This species is currently propagated at El Yunque; continued propagation and establishment of new individuals will ensure the long-term viability of this endangered species within the National Forest. Partners will also develop outreach and restoration techniques and structured management plans with clearly defined goals to integrate wildlife conservation with ecosystem services protection (such as water quantity and soil health). The priority watersheds defined by El Yunque National Forest (according to the Watershed Condition Framework) will be contemplated as part of the considered strategy.
Total FY21 Funding Request: $492,620 (NRCS $155,000 and USFS $337,620)
Partners: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Para La Naturaleza, Protectores de Cuencas Inc., Envirosurvey Inc., Centro para la Conservacion del Paisaje, Sea Grant, and Distritos de Conservacion de Suelos y Aguas del Suroeste
Alaska - Prince of Wales Landscape Restoration Partnership
- Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area
- Tongass National Forest
This project focuses on wildlife and fisheries habitat restoration projects that are intended to stimulate the local economy and maintain/enhance traditional use opportunities, while spanning jurisdictional boundaries in order to conserve species and improve aquatic and wildlife habitat on a landscape level. This project will strengthen existing cooperation and partnerships among state, tribal, federal and engaged private conservation organizations. This collaborative effort among local communities, state and federal agencies, native tribes and private organizations, collectively expands our capacity and scale to accomplish common goals at a landscape level that otherwise would not be possible. This project includes over 2,200 acres of Forest and Wildlife Habitat Improvement treatments on non-industrial private lands, state lands, and US Forest Service administered lands, in multiple project areas across Prince of Wales Island and associated outer islands. These investments not only provide economic stimulus to remote communities but will yield years of benefit in the form of clean water, healthy forests, and abundant fish and wildlife populations that are critical to the well-being of the people as well as the local economy of Prince of Wales Island.
Total FY21 Funding Request: $1,477,028 (NRCS $422,028 and USFS $1,055,000)
Partners: The Nature Conservancy, Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Craig Tribal Association, and the Hydaburg Cooperative Association
