2018 Enviva Forest Conservation Fund Request for Proposals and Expanded North Carolina Eligibility

2018 Enviva Forest Conservation Fund
Request for Proposals and Expanded North Carolina Eligibility

Greenville, SC and Bethesda, MD, October 9 – The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (Endowment) today released the 2018 Request for Proposals for the Enviva Forest Conservation Fund. Up to $500,000 is available for grants to protect bottomland hardwood and other wetland forests in eastern North Carolina and southeast Virginia. The new Request for Proposals more than doubles the number of North Carolina counties eligible for project funding.

“One of our goals is to continually enhance the impact of the Enviva Forest Conservation Fund for forest landowners and for wetland forest protection,” said Carlton Owen, the Endowment’s President and CEO. “After consulting with experts, the decision was made to more than double the number of North Carolina counties eligible to receive funding. This will increase the number of landowners who may participate in the program and also increase collaboration with programs such as the Sentinel Landscape Partnership.”

As described on their webpage, “Sentinel Landscapes are working or natural lands important to the Nation’s defense mission – places where preserving the working and rural character of key landscapes strengthens the economies of farms, ranches, and forests; conserves habitat and natural resources; and protects vital test and training missions conducted on those military installations that anchor such landscapes.” Eastern North Carolina is one of six currently designated Sentinel Landscapes.

“The N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is delighted to see the Enviva Forest Conservation Fund expand its area to cover 13 of the 33 counties of the Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape,” said Dewitt Hardee, NCDA & CS farmland protection director. “This expansion will provide additional partnering resources to ensure that key parcels of these working lands remain compatible for forestry production and military training while conserving natural habitat and the natural resources. Many of the privately owned farms in the Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape have hardwoods and wetland forests that may be appropriate for the Enviva Forest Conservation Fund.”

The expanded geographic range for the Enviva Forest Conservation Fund will also make eligible some of the top watershed priorities for the South Atlantic Partners in Flight Bird Conservation Plan and the Onslow Bight Conservation Forum, among others.

This is the third year of a 10-year, $5 million program launched by Enviva Holdings, LP (Enviva) and the Endowment in 2015. Not-for-profit organizations, government agencies and tribes are eligible to apply for

2018 Enviva Forest Conservation Fund
Request for Proposals and Expanded North Carolina Eligibility grants. The deadline for proposals is February 16, 2018. The RFP and additional materials are available on the Endowment’s website and at http://envivaforestfund.org/matching-fund-grants/.

To date, the Enviva Forest Conservation Fund has supported seven projects with $1 million. An estimated 10,500 acres of environmentally sensitive forested wetlands will be protected when these projects reach completion. These forests help clean drinking water, buffer structures from storms, and provide habitat for many species of wildlife, while at the same time providing jobs and economic opportunity for rural families and private landowners.

For more information contact:
Peter Stangel, 404-915-2763, peter@runslikeclock.work
The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment) is a not-for-profit public charity working collaboratively with partners in the public and private sectors to advance systemic, transformative, and sustainable change for the health and vitality of the nation’s working forests and forest-reliant communities – www.usendowment.org

About Enviva

Enviva is the world’s largest producer of wood pellets, a renewable energy source used to generate electricity and heat. We produce our pellets at plants in the Southern U.S. and supply them to electric power plants in the United Kingdom and continental Europe that previously were fueled by coal, enabling them to reduce their lifetime carbon emissions by about 80 percent. We make our pellets using sustainable practices that protect Southern forests. And we employ more than 600 people and support many other businesses in the rural South.

Enviva conducts its activities primarily through two entities: Enviva Partners, LP, a publicly-traded master limited partnership (NYSE: EVA), and Enviva Development Holdings, LLC, a wholly-owned private company. To learn more about Enviva, please visit our website, www.envivabiomass.com.

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