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Note: Session titles beginning with an asterisk (*) have student presenters.
AUTHORS: Victoria Lockhart and Jimmy Bullock - Resource Management Service, LLC
ABSTRACT: America’s Longleaf Restoration Initiative envisions restoring 8 million acres of longleaf pine across its historic range. Significant strides have been made toward this goal in recent years with much of this success on public lands or smaller private ownerships. To fully realize the 8 million acre goal, it is imperative to engage large working forest owners. Engaging these large landowners will require new and innovative strategies, techniques, and funding.Resource Management Service, LLC (RMS) and approximately 30 partners including the US Fish and Wildlife Service are working to create a ~200,000 acre working longleaf forest in perpetuity in the lower Alabama/Florida Panhandle Region. The Coastal Headwaters Forest Project is the largest single longleaf pine landscape restoration effort on private lands in history.
The primary objectives for Coastal Headwaters are: 1) establish a conservation easement to protect the lands as a working longleaf forest in perpetuity; 2) support working forest related economic development in local communities and create and expand markets for longleaf pine products; 3) provide ecological benefits for plants and animals inherent to the longleaf ecosystem; and 4) demonstrate landscape level longleaf forest restoration and a working longleaf forest model can be successful.
Significant additional benefits of the project include: protection of water quality in four major coastal river watersheds; conservation and restoration of approximately 45 federally listed, candidate, or “at risk” species including the gopher tortoise; provide increased carbon sequestration benefits in perpetuity; provide green space for military defense buffer, maneuver, and conservation opportunities with nearby Eglin and Whiting military bases; serve as a demonstration laboratory for integration of working forest / longleaf ecosystem restoration research; and provide recreational opportunities for nearby local communities.
There exists no other opportunity of this kind in the longleaf pine landscape – 200,000 acres available to be restored to longleaf pine and managed for both economic return and critical longleaf ecosystem benefits. This project will be a model for restoration of longleaf pine at the landscape scale, leading the way for other large working forest landowners to think differently about longleaf forest restoration. Moreover, it will demonstrate the strength of public and private partners to achieve a shared vision for conservation. The Coastal Headwaters Forest Project is a true “game changer” conservation opportunity; it is indeed the “right acres in the right place at the right time”.
Monday October 30, 2017 1:30pm - 2:00pm EDT
Breathitt