USDA backs $7.9M restoration in southern Indiana

by HANNA RAUWORTH

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) awarded $7.9 million to southern Indiana for the “Ready-Set-Fire in White Oak Woodlands” project, aiming to restore oak ecosystems.

The grant is through the Joint Chiefs’ Landscape Restoration Partnership program and will allow the USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) and Forest Service to expand woodland conservation in private and public land over the next three years. The project will also expand restoration for fire dependent plant communities, benefit local water supplies and improve the habitat for forest dependent songbirds at risk.

“The ‘Ready-Set-Fire in White Oak Woodlands’ project will allow us to implement on-the-ground forest conservation work and use appropriate prescribed fires in more places to enhance habitat for at-risk species and forest community types,” said Jeremiah Heise, Hoosier National Forest ecosystem program manager. “This project is a capacity building effort that will allow us to have a greater restoration impact at a true landscape scale.”

The project will specifically target the restoration of upland oak ecosystems, which have been declining in recent years. Indiana NRCS state forester, Dan Shaver, said the problems facing the forest are man-made, like too many deer and lack of forest management. 

“This lack of oak forest regeneration and management is creating a commotion in our oak ecosystems that will ripple through and be detrimental to an amazing diversity of plants, animals and ourselves if we are not forward thinking and take steps now to help sustain our oak ecosystems,” Shaver said.

Through the project, the Forest Service is partnering with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to fund a prescribed fire strike team that will implement fires across 16 counties to improve the habitat for at-risk species and reduce wildfire risk. Funding will also be provided to TNC to administer oak barrens and glade habitat restoration in southern Indiana.

For more information about the Joint Chiefs’ Landscape Restoration Partnership, visit nrcs.usda.gov/programs-initiatives/joint-chiefs-landscape-restoration-partnership.

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Contact Indianapolis Recorder Health & Environmental Reporter Hanna Rauworth at 317-762-7854 or follow her on Instagram at @hanna.rauworth.