America's Great Outdoors to Focus on SE Longleaf
The America's Great Outdoors (AGO) initiative has recently designated the longleaf pine forests of the Southeast as one of its 5 large landscape demonstrations areas across the country. Launched by President Obama to develop a 21 Century conservation and recreation agenda, AGO is a combined effort led by multiple federal agencies. Go to americasgreatoutdoors.gov for more info about how AGO aims to re-connect Americans with the nation's natural heritage and outdoor recreation. In fact, AGO's approach to conservation sounds a lot like that of the America's Longleaf Restoration Initiative. Both recognize the importance of landscape level restoration and the necessity of collaboration to enable many partners to work effectively on locally-led conservation projects.
Work is already underway between AGO, America's Longleaf Restoration Initiative (ALRI) and state/local partners to encourage even greater coordination, leverage resources and improve communication -- all with the goal of implementing conservation activities on the ground. AGO's attention to longleaf is expected to maximize opportunities for the already involved federal agencies to be strong partners and to better coordinate federal investments and resources. "In the years ahead I look forward to seeing how partners involved in the America's Longleaf Restoration Initiative and AGO were successful in developing best practices for landscape level restoration," said Bruce Beard at the Department of Defense who has closely followed AGO. The AGO designation is further evidence that longleaf pine restoration is clearly on the nation's conservation agenda going forward.