Longleaf Pine Forests

When European settlers arrived in the South, longleaf pine forests dominated our coastal plain, covering more than 90 million acres from Virginia to Texas. Today, these open, park-like forests occupy less than 4 percent of their original range. Over the decades, they’ve been cleared for farming and development, or replaced by plantations of faster-growing pines, such as the loblolly.

What we’ve lost is an ecological treasure chest. More than two dozen federally protected plants and animals rely on the longleaf pine forest for their existence. And nearly 900 plant species are found in these forests and nowhere else. Thanks to the work of SELC and its partners, longleaf restoration is now squarely on the nation’s conservation agenda.

Reviving Longleaf Pines Across Their Range

SELC is playing a leadership role in the America’s Longleaf Restoration Initiative, a range-wide effort to bring back this imperiled ecosystem. America’s Longleaf comprises a diverse array of nonprofit groups and government agencies that have a major stake in longleaf conservation―ranging from turkey hunters to the U.S. Department of Defense, which holds large stands of longleaf on southern military posts. All share a commitment to maintaining healthy longleaf forests, improving forests in poor condition, and restoring forests where they’ve been lost.

Lark Hayes, head of SELC’s Private Forests Program, served as coordinator of the steering committee for America’s Longleaf in 2008 and 2009 and was also instrumental in the development and successful rollout of its range-wide, science-based conservation plan. The America’s Longleaf Initiative is now implementing this visionary plan, which calls for expanding the longleaf ecosystem to 8 million acres within 15 years.

The Longleaf Conservation Plan

Developed with the help of more than 120 natural resource professionals, the America’s Longleaf plan is built around specific landscapes where conservation and restoration will have the greatest impact. Most of these places are anchored by a core of public land, such as a state game management area or a national forest, but much of the restoration effort is focused on privately owned forests, which constitute 90 percent of our region’s forestlands.

Putting Longleaf on the National Conservation Agenda

Soon after America’s Longleaf unveiled its conservation plan (pdf) in the spring of 2009, the restoration effort got a powerful jumpstart with an award of nearly $9 million in federal economic stimulus funds. Longleaf conservation also has been drawn into the national spotlight as the White House develops its America’s Great Outdoors Initiative, which was launched in April 2010 to promote conservation and recreation by reconnecting Americans to our forests, rivers, wetlands, and other outdoor resources.

Implementing the Conservation Plan

In the spring of 2010, America’s Longleaf began forming state-level teams to lead on-the-ground implementation of the conservation plan. For example, SELC has helped set up the North Carolina Longleaf Coalition, a team focused on expanding the state’s extensive longleaf forests along the coastal plain and in the Sandhills region around Fayetteville and Fort Bragg. With federal stimulus funds, the state is expanding its nursery capacity to produce millions of containerized longleaf seedlings and understory plants. Stimulus dollars also are funding tree plantings and carefully controlled fires that are essential to a healthy longleaf pine ecosystem.