Landowner Assistance Programs
Helping private landowners conserve Southern forests
While many family forest owners are successfully managing their lands for wildlife, water quality, and other conservation purposes, many landowners need technical and financial assistance to help them bring their vision to reality. The federal Farm Bill provides the greatest opportunity for landowner assistance to farm and forest owners.
©Craig Tanner
Family forest owners often need financial assistance to help conserve their forestland in a way that benefits the entire community.
Yet when enacted in 2002, the legislation created only one program (with $20 million in average annual funding) targeting forest landowners-which number 10 million across the U.S. By contrast, the Bill authorized at least five programs (with a combined $3 billion in average annual funding) for the 2 million U.S. agricultural producers. In addition, the state foresters who distribute Farm Bill monies directed specifically at private forest landowners are often responding to funding requests on a first-come, first-served basis rather than considering which requests could have the broadest conservation impacts. As a result, the potential of incentive programs to effect positive change on an ecologically relevant scale (e.g., longleaf pine forests or the forests of the Cumberland Plateau) has yet to be fully realized.
The Farm Bill is up for reauthorization in 2007, and SELC is working with our forest conservation allies to build consensus on how enhanced funding could be better directed at the high priority forested landscapes in our region (those where economic incentives can play a central role in landscape-scale conservation efforts).
On December 23, we joined with 10 other organizations in sending recommendations to the Secretary of Agriculture for increased funding targeted directly at family forest landowners for the next Farm Bill. We also advocated for larger, more general conservation Farm Bill programs to provide forest landowners greater access to incentives. Our partners in this effort include:
- American Forests
- American Forest Foundation
- Environmental DefenseLongleaf Alliance
- National Wildlife Federation
- Pinchot Institute
- Society of American Foresters
- Southern Group of State Foresters
- Southern Region, National Association of University Forest Resource Programs
- The Nature Conservancy
