Conservation Fund Benefits Low-Wealth Communities

The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment) and our partners such as The Conservation Fund believe that forestland conservation can have positive economic impact for low-wealth rural people. Indeed, there is already exciting impact in our programs to use forests for the economic and cultural benefit of low-wealth and minority communities.

For example, the Endowment helped catalyze creation of the Conservation Fund’s National Community Forestry Service Center with a lead grant of $100,000.  Now, more than a million dollars will move to disadvantaged communities in the Carolinas and Georgia for community forestry projects under a new Service Center program. The funds for the community forestry initiative include a $400,000 direct grant from the Forest Service and $400,000 that will come as in-kind contributions from state forestry agencies and various governmental and nonprofit partners.

In associated news, the Conservation Fund recently announced acquisition of a 3,300 acre forested tract near Fort Stewart in Coastal Georgia.  The Conservation Fund’s National Community Forestry Service Center and its Resourceful Communities program are working to make the property available for the economic benefit of surrounding low-income communities. In this regard, plans are developing for a partnership with McIntosh SEED, an African American-led coastal community-based development organization, to purchase part of the tract for agro-forestry-related low-income workforce training and entrepreneurship development.

Further north in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the Conservation Fund’s community forestry programs are supporting the Lac Vieux Desert band of the Lake Superior Chippewa Indians for a community forestry program focused on engagement of youth in forestry and tribal forestland acquisition.