Summary of FY24 Selected Joint Chiefs' Landscape Restoration Partnership Projects | Natural Resources Conservation Service (2024)

The Eagle Lake Susan River Watersheds project will address the catastrophic environmental and economic effects of recent fires on the Lassen National Forest. It will also help alleviate the fires’ impact on local communities and ecosystems that support recreation, tourism, and local jobs. The forested wildlands and wildland-urban interface areas in the project area are at risk due to hazardous fuel conditions that allow easily controlled surface fires to transition to more destructive passive torching and crowning type fire behavior. These conditions result in the increased potential for high intensity, high severity wildfire. This project will improve forest and watershed health and fire resiliency by reducing hazardous fuels and restoring landscapes on approximately 4,300 acres using treatments such as thinning, understory burns, aspen enhancement, spring development, and livestock management. The project area includes the communities of Susanville, Janesville, Spaulding, Stone’s Landing, Cove, and Emerson/Gold Run. Working with partners through a collaborative effort, the project will benefit local communities by allowing for safer and more effective fire suppression, protecting valuable infrastructure, and supporting the rural economy through sustainable wood supply and grazing opportunities.

Total FY24 Funding: $1,003,608
Partners: Susanville Indian Rancheria, Lassen Fire Safe Council

The North Idaho Highway 95 Hazardous Fuels project focuses on 829,453 acres of high-risk forestlands in North Idaho. Within Bonner, Boundary and Kootenai counties, this project is located along Highway 95, an important lifeline for local communities. It includes a mix of federal, state, and private forestlands that have extremely high fuel loads. There is also an increasing risk for insect and disease outbreaks, as well as catastrophic wildfires due to the growth in the wildland-urban interface and decreases in active forest management, which has reduced the ecological diversity and left forests dominated by stands of similar size, age, density, species composition, and structure. This project will mitigate wildfire threats to communities by focusing on hazardous fuels mitigation, improving the overall forest health, safeguarding road access to at risk communities, and increasing public education. In addition, this project ties directly into past, present, and future treatments in the surrounding area, creating a larger fire resilient landscape with wildfire prepared communities.

Total FY24 Funding: $1,076,300
Partners: Bureau of Land Management (BLM); Bonner, Boundary, and Kootenai county offices of emergency management; Idaho Department of Lands (IDL); Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation (IDPR); Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG); Avista Corporation; Stimson Lumber LLC; the Idaho Panhandle National Forests Collaborative

The Ready-Set-Fire in White Oak Woodlands project will fund prescribed fire and numerous forest management planning efforts across the state of Indiana. This project will provide much needed financial assistance to landowners to address the significant backlog of forestry applications in the project area, while funding the increase of forestry applications in the project area over the next 3 years. The project will also improve habitat for at risk species and reduce wildfire risk. The combination of forest management and prescribed fire will restore and reinvigorate the declining white oak woodlands and associated fire-dependent plant communities, prepare sites to deal with future increased wildfire risk, and aid in forest resiliency to the impacts of a changing climate.

Total FY24 Funding: $2,698,250
Partners: The Nature Conservancy, American Bird Conservancy, Let the Sun Shine In - Indiana, Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape, Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry

The Healthy Ecosystem of Longleaf Pine project will restore longleaf pine ecosystems and advance the objectives identified in America’s Longleaf Restoration Initiative Range-Wide Conservation Plan. Longleaf pine ecosystems are landscapes of concern in both Louisiana’s State Forest Action Plan and Wildlife Action Plan. Partners and stakeholders will work together to reduce wildfire risk and accelerate the restoration of longleaf pine, shortleaf oak hickory, and other native ecosystems across public and private lands.

Total FY24 Funding: $1,945,100
Partners: Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, Memphis Zoo, Ellen Trout Zoo, Houston Zoo, Audubon Zoo, Louisiana Forestry Association, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), USFWS Natchitoches Hatchery, USFWS Booker Fowler Hatchery, The Nature Conservancy, and the Soil and Water Conservation Districts of Caldwell, LaSalle, Jackson, Bienville, Grant, Natchitoches, Rapides, and Winn parishes

This project will reduce fire risk to rural communities and address ecosystem needs from the pine savannah-shortgrass prairie in the Nebraska panhandle to the mixed grass prairies of the Sandhills and Missouri River Breaks of South Dakota. By preventing the Northern Great Plains from becoming susceptible to the high-intensity wildfires seen across the West, this project will help keep historically underserved communities as profitable, working lands. Including the Fort Pierre National Grassland and surrounding lands will also help usher in a new geography to successfully implement Joint Chiefs work while providing benefits to Lower Brule Sioux Tribal lands. Building on prior Joint Chiefs successes, this project will decrease threats to the wildland-urban interface across the Northern Great Plains.

Total FY24 Funding: $1,669,942
Partners: Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Bird Conservancy of the Rockies, local volunteer fire departments, Middle Niobrara Natural Resources District, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Nebraska Legacy Project, North Dakota State University, Pheasants Forever South Dakota, Phoenix Conservancy, Rainwater Basin Joint Venture, Sandhills Task Force, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), University of Nebraska Lincoln, Upper Niobrara White Natural Resources District, Mid-Missouri Burn Association of south-central South Dakota

This project will build on the successes of two prior Joint Chiefs projects in Puerto Rico and will integrate four watersheds to implement reforestation and restoration activities in order to benefit of threatened and endangered species habitat. Additionally, wildfire prevention activities and conservation initiatives, including removing invasive species, will be implemented throughout the southern municipalities of Puerto Rico. This work will promote a connectivity corridor across the southern region of the island to improve the quality of habitat for several federally listed species. This project will also focus on restoring forests and agriculture damaged by the devastating 2017 and 2022 hurricane seasons, as well as the 2021 earthquake. By partnering with non-industrial forest landowners, this project will reduce wildfire risk while improving the health and resiliency of the forest landscape.

Total FY24 Funding: $150,000
Partners: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Para La Naturaleza, Protectores de Cuencas, Distrito Caribe, Centro para la Conservacion del Paisaje, Cafiesencia, Caribbean Regenerative Community Development, Distritos de Conservacion de Suelos y Aguas del Suroeste, Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority

This project will restore habitat within dynamic forest restoration focal areas in order to improve forest conditions at landscape scales across state, federal, and private lands in the foothills and mountains of South Carolina. Conservation planning and active forest management will create and maintain a mix of successional stages across woodlands and savannas as a win-win-win strategy to benefit forest health, wildlife populations, and climate adaptation. In addition, this project will address key gaps in forest product markets through wood innovation, while providing workforce development for the forest industry. By conducting active forest management, this project will help support rural economies with sustainable supply chains of forest products while conserving open spaces and improving wildlife habitat.

Total FY24 Funding: $789,099
Partners: South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCNDR), South Carolina State Parks, South Carolina Forestry Commission, Ruffed Grouse Society, American Woodco*ck Society, Duke Energy Foundation, U.S. Endowment for Forestry & Communities, Audubon South Carolina, Clemson University, National Deer Association, Mainline Natural Resources, The Nature Conservancy, National Wild Turkey Federation

This project brings together many different partners to work along the private-public matrix to restore aquatic habitat at a landscape scale. It will expand on the successes and work completed under a prior Joint Chiefs project awarded in 2021, and will address erosion, non-point source pollution, habitat fragmentation, and invasive species. By improving water quality and habitat across land ownership types, this project will benefit both the human environment and the wildlife that share it.

Total FY24 Funding: $1,331,198
Partners: Soil conservation districts of Bradley, Carter, co*cke, Greene, Johnson, McMinn, Monroe, Polk, Sevier, Sullivan, Unicoi, and Washington counties; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS); Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency; Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation; Conservation Fisheries Inc.; Trout Unlimited; Chattanooga Zoo; Southeast Conservation Corps; The Nature Conservancy

The Vernal Municipal Watershed Project will protect the water supply for Vernal, Utah and adjacent communities from wildfire risks. The project will also improve habitat for wildlife and fish and will help restore rangeland habitats. The project will implement fuel breaks, meadow restoration and enhancement, cheat grass reduction, and timber stand improvements. By crossing several vegetation types -- from conifer and mixed conifer to sagebrush communities -- this project will help protect local communities and municipal watersheds from catastrophic wildfire.

Total FY24 Funding: $1,204,700
Partners: Uintah Conservation District; Utah Division of Forestry, Fire, and State Lands; Central Utah Water Conservancy District; Mule Deer Foundation; Utah Watershed Restoration Initiative

The Archer Knob Project was developed collaboratively with a variety of stakeholders united toward the shared goals of restoring wildlife habitat, increasing timber production, reducing wildfire risk, and improving recreation facilities. The unfragmented oak and pine forests of the project area are recognized as a hotspot for biodiversity in the Central Appalachians, containing numerous rare, threatened, and endangered species. Management activities will serve to bolster these species through habitat management and will help create and maintain early successional habitat. By working collaboratively with partners, this project will increase the resilience and proper function of ecological systems while providing for species diversity, soil and water conservation, and sustainable recreation.

Total FY24 Funding: $899,312
Partners: Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, National Forest Foundation, Appalachian Conservation Corps, Trout Unlimited, National Civilian Community Corps AmeriCorps, the Nature Conservancy