WHIP Sparks Landowner Interest
All indications are that private landowners across the South are tremendously enthusiastic about the various programs offering technical and financial assistance for managing and establishing longleaf forests. Consider, for example, one of the more ambitious recent initiatives by the Natural Resources Conservation Service utilizing in Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program. Interested landowners have received more than $30 million in special funding in just the past 2 years. The supported conservation practices include timber stand improvement, prescribed fire and tree and understory planting. In 2010, some 393 private landowner contracts resulted in approximately 39,000 acres treated in nine states. The accomplishments for 2011 are currently being tabulated.
"Even though we allocated significant funds for longleaf -- more than a million dollars in FY 2011 -- we still had to turn away a number of eager applicants," said J. B. Martin, State Conservationist in North Carolina. (Martin also coordinates NRCS's longleaf initiative across the 9 state range.) With such strong landowner interest in longleaf assistance through WHIP, in some states NRCS is also finding it necessary to work hard to beef up capacity to ensure that all the funded practices actually get implemented on the ground. According to Martin, for example, prescribed burning is the activity landowners most frequently request help with. "In fact, NC has seen so much interest in burning that NRCS is taking extra steps in cooperation with the NC Forest Service to ensure that needed burn plans can be developed, the fire lines established and the burn crews contracted," he says.
With landowner demand for assistance so strong, hopes are high that additional WHIP funding will be available in FY 2012. "Our agency is fully committed to longleaf, but we've got to wait on the federal budget process to know for sure," Martin says.