2021 TLA Highlights

2021 Highlights

FROM THE LONGLEAF ALLIANCE

Prescribed fire in flatwood salamander pond basins at Escribano Point in Florida. Prior to reintroducing fire, the AMBBIS Teams cut and piled encroaching trees and shrubs around the wetland to facilitate restoration. Photo by Samantha Dillon.

The Longleaf Alliance made significant progress toward our mission to ensure a sustainable future for longleaf pine ecosystems in 2021, all while navigating the ever-changing conditions of the global COVID-19 pandemic. From the Virtual Longleaf Academy Program to record-setting prescribed fire accomplishments, our programs continue to follow our GUIDE-ing framework to achieve key strategic longleaf objectives. The Alliance's G.U.I.D.E. acronym (Growing Understanding - Improving - Diverse - Ecosystems) identifies our key strategic longleaf objectives.

GROWING — We raise awareness, increase engagement, and grow a love for longleaf across the range.

The Longleaf Alliance (TLA) launched a revamped website in early 2021 with assistance from HLJ Creative. We are thrilled longleafalliance.org continues to offer the same content our visitors have come to expect while also creating a more user-friendly experience. The website transition also launched new features like The Longleaf Library, a searchable tool for outreach resources and longleaf pine-related research.

UNDERSTANDING — We collect and share technical information about longleaf through science-based education, outreach, and technical assistance through methods best for each audience.

Longleaf Academy Program

2021 presented the opportunity to offer an entirely new program – the Virtual Longleaf Academy. With support from our partners, TLA staff offered four virtual courses last year, including a virtual Longleaf 101 (two sessions), Longleaf Foundations, Herbicide 201 (two sessions), and Groundcover 201. Reaching over 300 attendees, representing all nine longleaf states, was a huge accomplishment! We celebrated even further with the return of in-person Academy offerings in late 2021. The Fire 201 Academy, complete with a prescribed fire demonstration, was a milestone event with twenty participants.

SE FireMap

The SE FireMap debuted in 2021 to accurately track and understand wildland fire patterns across the Southeastern United States. Funded by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service's Working Lands for Wildlife program under an agreement with the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, TLA’s Lucas Furman served as liaison for the project’s technical oversight team. Tall Timbers Research Station used the U.S. Geological Survey’s Landsat Burned Area products to map all detectable burned areas across the longleaf range since 1994, including managed prescribed burns and wildfires. The SE FireMap version 1.0 was released in the spring and was recently updated to include 2020 data.

IMPROVING FOREST HEALTH – Through active stewardship, we improve the condition of longleaf ecosystems across the range.

Gulf Coastal Plain Ecosystem Partnership Landscape

In addition to commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Gulf Coastal Plain Ecosystem Partnership, partners also celebrated significant stewardship accomplishments, including a record year for TLA teams assisting partners with prescribed fire in the landscape. During fiscal year 2020-2021, TLA teams, including the EST (Ecosystem Support Team), WEST (Wetland Ecosystem Support Team), and the AMBBIS (reticulated flatwoods salamander) team, burned over 90,000 acres. The Teams continue to assist with invasive species control, wetland restoration, reticulated flatwood salamander head-starting, red-cockaded woodpecker cavities, and other habitat improvement activities in Alabama and Florida.

DIVERSE FORESTS CONSERVED — We work with landowners to ensure the future of longleaf by conserving highquality, diverse longleaf forests across generations.

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A. TLA staff assist longleaf restoration efforts on both private and public properties. During a recent site visit to prepare for planting at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, Ed O'Daniels spied & photographed this fighter jet. B. Prescribed burn demonstration at the Fire 201 Academy in Georgia, the first in-person academy in over a year and a half. Photo by Carol Denhof. C. Burner Bob® greets a new friend at the first annual Savannah River Fire Festival in October. Photo by Lisa Lord.

The Georgia Sentinel Landscape

The Georgia Sentinel Landscape Pilot Project is a collaboration between public and private stakeholders who have overlapping natural resource management goals in proximity to one or more of the nine military installations that anchor the landscape. The project goals are to help private landowners overcome challenges associated with effectively managing and enhancing their forestlands with prescribed fire by providing technical and financial assistance as well as outreach programs. A prescribed fire cost-share program was initiated, assisting more than 100 landowners and over 10,500 acres of prescribed fire in the first year. Two new burn trailers are now available for rental by private landowners, one housed at the Georgia Forestry Commission (GFC) Talbot County office and the other at the GFC Glynn County office. Additionally, the WoodsCamp digital platform launched as an effort to reach landowners who might also be interested in managing their property with prescribed fire and have not been served through traditional outreach methods.

ECOSYSTEMS RESTORED — Through advocacy, policies, assistance, partners, and our own management actions, we facilitate the expansion of longleaf ecosystems across the range.

The Longleaf Alliance, working in collaboration with restoration partners, supported the planting of 7.2 million longleaf pine seedlings in fiscal year 2021. Planting projects were completed on both private and public land, with funding from Arbor Day Foundation, Eastman Foundation, Enviva, Georgia Pacific, National Forest Foundation, One Tree Planted, USFWS Partners Program, National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, and National Wild Turkey Federation. We also continued our tree planting program with Appalachian Mountain Brewing and Georgia-Pacific’s Aria® brand.