Protecting Wildlife and a Way of Life: America’s Grasslands Conference [w/video]

September 30 – America’s prairies, iconic grasslands that conjure up images of cowboys, Native Americans, wild horses and bison, are some of the most endangered ecosystems in the world. As they disappear, so does an American way of life, a western spirit of freedom, wilderness and connecting with nature.

The National Wildlife Federation and South Dakota State University hosted a landmark event, America’s Grasslands: Status, Threats and Opportunities, in South Dakota to raise the national profile of  our declining prairies. Participants came from all over the country, even representatives from South Africa, Mexico and  Canada, to discuss the challenges for grasslands in North America.

Implementing a Vision: Longleaf Pine Ecosystem Restoration in South Carolina

September 30 – The South Carolina Wildlife Federation recently partnered with the National Wildlife Federation and the US Fish and Wildlife Service to assist in implementing the vision of the Range-wide Conservation Plan for Longleaf Pine ecosystems with the full spectrum of ecological, economic and social values. SCWF and NWF will work with land trusts in the areas surrounding the Francis Marion National Forest (FMNF) and will reach out to African American Leaders and landowners in the low country area to accelerate progress in longleaf pine conservation. SCWF and NWF project will utilize a mix of technical workshops, field days, public agency personnel including NRCS and consulting foresters.

Alarming New Study Documents BP Oil’s Impact on Gulf Ecosystem

September 26 – A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences documents the effect of BP oil on the Gulf killifish. The minnow-like wetlands resident is a critical part of the Gulf’s food chain and was chosen for study by a team of researchers because of its abundance and sensitivity to any effects of toxic pollution. The study finds that oil exposure has altered the killifish’s cellular function in ways that are known to be predictive of developmental abnormalities, decreased hatching success, and decreased embryo and larval survival.

“This study is alarming because similar health effects seen in fish, sea otters, and harlequin ducks following the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska were predictive of population impacts, from decline to outright collapse,” said Doug Inkley, senior scientist with the National Wildlife Federation.

And here are highlights from NWF in the News:

• Examiner: National Wildlife Federation hike and seek a success in Chicago
• CNN Money: U.S. to decide the Keystone XL pipeline’s fate
• The Herald-Palladium: How safe are our pipelines?
• Bloomberg BusinessWeek: FEMA policies in Puget Sound harm salmon

For more, visit www.nwf.org/News

Amadou Diop, pictured in the yellow shirt, speaks with rural landowners about opportunities around integrating longleaf pine restoration into their farming practices. (Photo credit: Flickr BrianLucy)

African-American landowners still control a significant portion of the land in the southeast (more than in any other part of the US), but most of them have not yet been able to fully benefit from their land-based assets. Minority and other underserved rural landowners typically lack the knowledge to manage their forests and market the full value of products and services that derive from them. This is in part due to their limited awareness and access to available public and private resources.

The field day addressed these challenges by informing landowners about opportunities, programs and services around longleaf pine restoration and by connecting them with the resource providers. For many participants, this was the first time they heard about longleaf pine and the available cost-share programs for restoration through Natural Resources Conservation Service and Farm Service Agency.

The church meeting room was filled with over a hundred landowners from three states. Jakin is at the apex of where southwest GA, southeast AL and the FLA Panhandle come together. It is also just a few miles from the Apalachicola River, one of the most biologically diverse river systems in the U.S. with headwaters above Atlanta. 

Our event provided a mix of presentations on longleaf pine restoration, Farm bill programs, and carbon markets, as well as a sumptuous southern homestyle lunch, and outdoor time looking at new longleaf stands and the integration of grass-fed beef rotational grazing systems and pine straw harvesting.

Landowners from Florida, Alabama, and Georgia gathered to learn about longleaf pine systems, which are naturally more resilient to climate extremes than other southern pine species due to their ability to withstand severe windstorms, resist pests, tolerate wildfires and drought, and capture carbon pollution from the atmosphere. (Photo credit: Flickr BrianLucy)

Longleaf pine has a storied history in the development of the South. As the dominant native pine of the region, its high-quality wood was used in both residential and commercial structures, including homes across the country and U.S. naval ships. Longleaf forests also provided a variety of other economic products including turpentine, pine straw, and recreational hunting habitat. Unfortunately, overcutting and replacement by short-rotation pine species or agricultural crops has greatly diminished the extent of longleaf pine. It once covered more than 90 million acres across eight states along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, but now is found on less than 3 percent of its historic range.

This loss has had huge impacts on the region’s wildlife as many unique species of plants, insects, birds, amphibians and reptiles are associated with healthy longleaf pine ecosystems. A serious investment in longleaf pine restoration will both protect native biodiversity and help the South better prepare for global warming while increasing climate resiliency in underserved communities.

Restoring longleaf pine ecosystems across the Southeast will boost the economy and help the region cope with global warming’s expanding effects, according to a new report from national and regional conservation groups. Standing Tall: How Restoring the Longleaf Pine Can Help Prepare the Southeast for Global Warming (PDF) was released by the National Wildlife Federation and two southeast forest conservation groups, America’s Longleaf and The Longleaf Alliance.

The report highlights the latest scientific research on global warming’s effects in the Southeast and how it puts southern forests at risk and describes how longleaf pine forests are uniquely resilient to the long term impacts of global warming and the opportunities they present for forest landowners, especially minority and underserved landowners throughout the Southeast.