Forest Adaptation cultivates a network of partners dedicating to strengthening and improving policy and outreach efforts that enhance family forest owners' ability to adapt to climate change.

Conservation and Restoration of Longleaf Pine Habitat:

Adapting to climate change means increasing your forests' resiliency to catastrophic events like hurricanes and wildfire. Longleaf pine, a unique forest habitat that once covered 90 million acres in the South, provides critical habitat for the imperiled gopher tortoise and helps manage future risks because of its ability to withstand more-extreme weather changes.

Through outreach and education, such as demonstration field days and the development of a landowner-friendly management handbook, the Center aims to increase the number of family forest landowners who are actively managing longleaf pine in the Southeast.

The Center also partners with other organizations that promote longleaf restoration and active forest management on family forestlands. In collaboration with the Conservation Incentives and Prescribed Fire programs, the role that market-based incentives may play in encouraging habitat restoration for the gopher tortoise will also be explored. Read more about our work in Florida and Georgia.

Working Forest Conservation Easements and Family Forestlands
The South is facing increasing development pressures which may lead forest landowners to sell their property. Conservation easements can be an important tool to stopping the development of land but may not be attractive to forest landowners who are active stewards of their property and rely on occasional timber revenue. Conservation easements also provide permanent protection of forestland, which helps mitigate the effects of climate change by sequestering carbon, protecting water resources, and providing habitat for at-risk species.

Working forest conservation easements, which allow active forest management, for timber, recreation, and other ecosystem services, may have a broader appeal for some forest landowners. To ensure truly permanent protection of these working forests, adaptive management practices must be adopted to address changing climate conditions. However, there is a limited understanding of the extent that these easements havebeen used, the interest or acceptance among the forestland owner community, and potential needs of both landowners and land trusts in considering if a working forest easement is appropriate.

To better understand the role workingforest conservation easementscanplay in conserving family forestlands in the South, the Center conducted surveys and focus groups to gague the current attitudes and behaviors of landowners and land trusts. Pilot projects will put lessons learned from the social research into action.

In addition to these initiatives, the Center continues to work with state and local resource agencies, as well as other nonprofits, to increase the availability of information for family forest owners on management for imperiled species.