Double G Timber Sale
Agreement Narrative: To provide technical assistance to private landowners and financial assistance through NRCS’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Working Lands For Wildlife (WLFW) program.
Primary Funder: Natural Resources Conservation Service- Tennessee (NRCS-TN)
Location: Cumberland Plateau and East Tennessee
Innovation: The purpose of this agreement, between the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Ruffed Grouse Society & American Woodcock Society (RGS & AWS), is to hire an All-Lands Wildlife Forester in Tennessee (TN) to provide technical assistance to private landowners and financial assistance through NRCS’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Working Lands For Wildlife (WLFW) program for golden–winged warbler in the northern Cumberland Plateau and East TN regions. In the Appalachian regions of TN, wildlife have suffered significant population declines for the past several decades due to a lack of habitat diversity in forestland. The majority of the region’s forests today are even-aged, closed-canopy forests, that regenerated about 80-120 years old. This project will provide direct technical and financial assistance to private landowners to increase the proportions of young forests, open forests, and late-successional forests across the landscape in the target region. We will help with the delivery of NRCS Farm Bill programs to eligible landowners to incentivize the implementation of conservation practices and benefit rural landowners and communities. The private lands activities associated with our project will be part of a broader all-lands strategy that our Wildlife Forester will be implementing in TN, including activities and outputs on the Cherokee National Forest and state-owned lands (e.g., Catoosa Wildlife Management Area and Lone Mountain State Forest).
Impact: Our project will be focused on four primary objectives: 1) promote active forest management that benefits healthy forests and abundant wildlife by leading outreach events, webinars, and field tours that showcase healthy forestlands; 2) provide technical assistance to private forest owners to connect private forest landowners to financial assistance opportunities through NRCS cost-share programs, including WLFW and EQIP; 3) assist with contracting, preparing, and overseeing the implementation of active forest management activities on private lands; 4) perform effects monitoring of forestry practices by completing pre- and post-treatment vegetative plots and utilizing decision-support tools (e.g., REGEN3) to measure success of forestry treatments over time.
Partners and Chapter Contributions: Combined, our project activities will provide capacity for the delivery of NRCS cost-share programs on-the-ground with strong partnerships with private and public sector entities, including NRCS TN, TN Wildlife Resources Agency, TN Wildlife Federation, TN Division of Forestry, TN Forestry Association, Quail Forester, The Nature Conservancy, the University of TN, consulting foresters, and forest product companies.
Local contractors will be utilized for implementing the treatments on the ground.
A specific logo is not needed to recognize funders or partners.
Deliverables:
- Targeted 1,159 private forest landowners in Tennessee via a direct mailer as outreach for technical assistance.
- Led or participated in 2 education and outreach events to promote active forest management and connect with private landowners for technical assistance.
- Provided technical assistance to 20 private forest landowners in Tennessee, including initial field site visits.
- Completed 4 forest management plans across over 350 acres for private forest landowners in Tennessee.
- Completed 32.60 acres prescribed burning in partnership with Tennessee Division of Forestry on private forest lands in Tennessee surrounding our DFRB at Lone Mountain State Forest and Catoosa WMA as part of the NFWF grant connected to this TWRA agreement.
- Completed 220 common stand exam plots in the Pond Mountain project area on the North Zone of the Cherokee National Forest to feed into the NEPA planning process.
- Completed 47 acres noncommercial habitat improvements (thinning and gap creation) at the Circle the Wagon project on the North Zone of the Cherokee National Forest.
- Completed 217 acres noncommercial habitat improvements (thinning and gap creation) at the Ocoee Admin Site project on the South Zone of the Cherokee National Forest.
- Successfully sold the Double G Timber Sale via our Double G Stewardship Project with the Cherokee National Forest. The logging contractor completed commercial timber harvests across 15.6 acres of the first cutting unit to create young and open forest habitat.
