The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it will invest more than $48.6 million through the Joint Chiefs' Landscape Restoration Partnership.
The investment will be used to fund projects aimed at reducing wildfire risk, improving water quality and restoring forest ecosystems, which will contribute to the USDA's efforts to combat climate change, according to a Feb. 21 news release. The investment will be made through the USDA Forest Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and will involve collaboration between agricultural producers, forest landowners and National Forest System lands.
“These Joint Chiefs’ projects are excellent examples of how federal, state and local agencies can use targeted funding to achieve results that meet producers’ conservation goals, build drought resiliency and mitigate climate change," NRCS Chief Tom Cosby said in the release. "Through collaboration and strategic investments in local communities, we continue to work with the Forest Service to respond to significant conservation needs on private and public lands.”
There will be 14 new projects funded through this investment, the release reported.
“The need for cross-boundary wildfire risk reduction work as part of our Wildfire Crisis Strategy is more urgent than ever," Forest Service Chief Randy Moore said in the release. "These projects, and the $930 million of investments being made across 21 landscapes in highest-risk firesheds in the western U.S., speak to our commitment to improve forest health and resiliency across the nation’s forests to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire.”
Moore went on to lay out the risk of fires and talk about his organization's nationwide scope, according to the release.
“We have long moved beyond wildfire seasons to fire years, with an annual average of 8 million acres burned since 2015; more than 10 million acres burned in three of those years," Moore said in the release. "The Joint Chiefs’ Landscape Restoration Partnership promotes cross-boundary work needed to increase the scale of our wildfire risk reduction efforts to protect people and communities, critical infrastructure, water supplies and ecosystems from extreme wildfire.”
