The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Alabama (NRCS-AL) reminds landowners that a second fiscal year 2023 sign-up for the Joint Chiefs’ Landscape Restoration Partnership Project called The Sustaining Gains in Longleaf Pine Restoration through Coordinated Cogongrass Control project continues. But, because this is the final year of the project, this will be the final sign-up opportunity. The sign-up deadline is Friday, June 16, 2023.
Eligible counties for the project include certain areas of Coffee, Covington, Escambia and Geneva.
The mission of the project is to manage and protect successful longleaf pine ecosystem restoration on 1.2 million acres in south-central Alabama and Northwest Florida. This includes the Conecuh National Forest. 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) which is a partnership coordinated by The Longleaf Alliance. But, past and future investments in this landscape are threatened by cogongrass, one of the world’s top-ten worst weeds.
The 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.
To learn more about financial and technical assistance available to help Alabama farmers and other landowners improve and protect their land, visit your local NRCS office.