Auburn April 10, 2019 – The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) announced the Department has awarded over $63 million in grants for 16 landscape-scale, regionally-based projects aimed at promoting healthy and resilient forests that protect and enhance forest carbon sequestration.
Placer Land Trust received an award of $1,300,700 for the Butler Property Fee Title Acquisition and Conservation Easement. The acquisition in fee title is for a 192-acre forest property in Foresthill spanning the North Fork and Middle Fork American River Canyons. The conservation easement is to be granted to CAL FIRE. The property is adjacent to Auburn State Recreation Area (ASRA), Federal lands, and a passed conservation project with the same landowner.
The project plan calls for the addition of extensive public trails, a new trailhead for the ASRA, A propose memorial forest, with an innovative forest revenue model, high-quality, diverse, mature forests, a wildfire corridor, and a potential fire break between subdivisions in high-risk areas that is slated for development.
CAL FIRE’s Forest Health program restores California’s forestlands through a suite of active management approaches including thinning of overly dense and, in some cases, pest-impacted forests; use of prescribed fire for ecological restoration and to reduce hazardous fuel loads; reforestation of forests diminished by fire, drought, insects and disease; and capacity support for forest management, wood processing and biomass utilization.
“These landscape-level Forest Health projects complement the immediate actions to prevent and mitigate wildfires that CAL FIRE proposed in its recent “45-Day Report” to Governor Gavin Newsom. Together, our investments will help make our forests more resilient, reducing the risk of wildlife and the resulting loss of carbon, while also improving ecosystem health,” said Angie Lottes, CAL FIRE’s Assistant Deputy Director for Climate and Energy.
The CAL FIRE Forest Health program is part of California Climate Investments (CCI), a statewide program that puts billions of Cap-and-Trade dollars to work reducing GHG emissions, strengthening the economy, and improving public health and the environment- particularly in disadvantaged communities. Within the next month, CAL FIRE expects to award and additional $37 million for Fire Prevention projects and $2.5 million for scientific research into forest health issues. Both programs are also part of the California Climate Investments suite of programs. California Air Resources Board released the 2019 CCI Annual Report to the California State Legislature yesterday.
Click here for the list of Fiscal Year 18/19 Forest Health grant recipients.