The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) is currently accepting pre-proposals for the 2024 California Forests: Large Watershed Planning Grants.
Donor Name: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF)
State: California
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 01/18/2024
Size of the Grant: More than $1 million
Grant Duration: 5-10 Years
Details:
Partnering with the Pacific Southwest Region of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), is managing over $50 million for landscape-scale grants—encompassing up to 250,000 acres—to address comprehensive efforts to restore forest ecosystems.
Priorities
Ecological restoration and protection at a landscape scale requires a comprehensive approach that takes into account the interdependencies between water and fire. Applicants will have to exhibit their competency to manage not only funding, but also project activities across the landscape.
The major goals of grants which will be awarded through this solicitation are to:
- Increase the pace and scale of restoration to address impacts to communities and watersheds from unnatural, high intensity wildfire events;
- Working closely with USFS and CAL FIRE to align large scale forest health projects;
- Plan for post-fire resilience and manage the risk of climate-driven hazards;
- Engage in inclusive community-driven process;
- Facilitate appropriate environmental compliance and permitting strategy to meet long-term objectives;
- Establish a transparent strategy and funding which will give organizational clarity on capacity needs and opportunities;
- Provide sustainable and lasting ecological benefits to the forests;
- Engage in efficient, strategic, and innovative solutions to develop and implement forest health and resilience projects;
- Encourage shared stewardship of USFS lands through expanded partnerships and cooperation;
- Increase the capacity to plan and implement prescribed fire to reduce hazardous fuel loads;
- Increase forest carbon storage capacity;
- Accelerate species recovery, protect biodiversity, decrease the rate of loss for sensitive species’ habitat, and reduce the footprint of invasive species, and;
- Incorporate monitoring to track species and habitat recovery.
Although not an exhaustive list, recipients of a landscape grant shall create resilient forests through:
Fuels Management
- Prescribed Fire
- Treatment or removal of insect or disease-affected trees
- Manage and improve ecological resilience to future fire through invasive vegetation treatment, creating and maintaining fuel breaks, vegetation community age-class structure restoration, and strategic fuels reduction.
Forest and Upland Restoration and Management
- Evaluate forest ecosystems, such as oak woodlands, native grasslands, upland conifer, and chaparral and coastal sage scrub and develop effective treatment/restoration actions.
- Reforestation and Restoration of Forest Vegetation
- Harvest native seed and/or propagate native plants, and maintain, improve, or restore native ecosystems communities and resilient landscapes.
Aquatic Organism Passage Improvements
- Improve hydrologic connectivity and aquatic organism passage through improvements to culverts and other transportation infrastructure or removal of other barriers
- Reduce sediment and other runoff-borne pollutants to streams;
- Restore and/or maintain natural flow and geomorphology, and;
- Create, maintain, or improve instream, riparian, or wetland habitat.
- Remove or reduce invasive species threatening aquatic habitat and/or listed species.
Funding Information
The California Forests Program will award approximately $50 million in grants in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). NFWF expects that average awards for projects will range between $5 million and $15 million. Projects may extend from 5 to 7 years.
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligible applicants include non-profit organizations, state agencies, local/municipal agencies, and tribal governments and organizations.
- Ineligible applicants include federal agencies, international organizations, for-profit businesses, and unincorporated individuals.
For more information, visit NFWF.
