Forest restoration projects help forests recover from past damages and keep them healthy for all of us to benefit from. Restoration projects help build sustainable rural economies by promoting local businesses built on restoration and recreation, not clear cutting and resource extraction. The Wilderness Society is working on three forest restoration top priorities:
Legacy Roads and Trails
The Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative repairs high priority roads and trails and also reclaims expensive, unnecessary, environmentally problematic ones. So far, this initiative has:
- Created or retained 700-915 jobs annually
- Improved 659,600 acres of animal habitat
- Restored 659,600 miles of streams that provide clean drinking water to surrounding communities
- Lowered the long-term costs of maintaining the road system
- Improved access to important and popular recreation destinations
- Reduced pollution in America’s rivers and drinking water
See also:
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program
The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) encourages collaborative and science-based ecosystem restoration of priority national forest landscapes while benefitting local communities. This recently created program has already proven to be a success.
See also:
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program
Integrated Resource Restoration
Integrated Resource Restoration (IRR) is a pilot experiment to see if combining existing funds into a single pot for restoration will get better restoration work done on the ground. The pilot was approved in 2012, so we are still in the very early stages of this new experiment.
See also:
Integrated Resource Restoration Budget
Helpful links
- Healthy Headwaters Project:
http://carpediemwest.org/what-we-do/healthy-headwaters-project#hhprojinfo - USDA Integrated Resource Restoration:
http://www.fs.fed.us/biology/resources/pubs/issuepapers/issuepaper_irr_201107.pdf
