Blog: NFF Grant Partners and Projects - National Forest Foundation

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NFF Grant Partners and Projects

Here’s the STOR-y: The NFF and Gunnison County Team Up to Create Stewardship Jobs

As with many mountain communities in Colorado, visitation to the Gunnison Valley is at an all-time high. Land managers observe that they have never seen our public lands as busy as they have been in recent years. NFF and Gunnison County officials acted urgently this past spring to prepare for the anticipated onrush of summer visitation. The partners quickly hatched the idea for the STOR Corps – a jobs-creation program modeled in-part after the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1920’s and in-part after the youth corps model that is so successful today.

Front Range Trail Stewardship Strike Team Begins Burning Bear Trail Construction

Earlier this season, the Front Range Trail Stewardship Strike Team started their first project on a Front Range Trail in Colorado. Invaluable support from VF Foundation made the Strike Team, a new pilot partnership between the NFF, USDA Forest Service, and Mile High Youth Corps (MHYC), possible in 2020.

Collaborating to Improve Deep Bay Cabin on the Tongass National Forest

The Tongass National Forest boasts 142 reservable cabins on its approximately 17 million acres. The Rasmuson Foundation generously provided support for the renovation of 10 Tongass cabins between 2019 and 2021. It’s an investment in spaces that uplift the wellbeing, culture, and economy of Southeast Alaska.

Youth Discover the Importance of Stewardship in Southern Oregon

In June 2019, 20 high school students from Southern Oregon’s Rouge Valley met as strangers under towering ponderosa pines in the forested mountains above the town of Ashland. Selected through a competitive interview process, these juniors and graduating seniors would spend the next five weeks learning the basics of ecological restoration and forestry as part of Lomakatsi Restoration Project’s Ashland Watershed Youth Training & Employment Program (AWYTEP).

Speaking with the Trees: NFF Grant Funds First Forest Therapy Trail On National Forest

For decades, any mention of “therapy” sparked the image of a patient lying down on a long couch, describing their dreams to a therapist with glasses and a notepad. Now, our broader definitions of therapy and its mental and physical health benefits allow us to push the boundaries of what is therapeutic, including our National Forests. Thanks to a Matching Awards Program (MAP) from the National Forest Foundation, community members and guides are currently designing and building the first certified Forest Therapy Trail on the El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico.

Cutthroat Trail Construction Begins

In mid-July, a cross-disciplinary group from the San Juan National Forest hiked a stretch of what will soon be known as the Cutthroat Trail, a roughly 5.5-mile trail situated above the East Fork of Hermosa Creek. This new multiple-use trail will be the first on the San Juan National Forest designed for E-bikes, but will also be accessible to hikers, horseback riders, and mountain bikers wanting to explore the Hermosa area.

How do you stop a mountain pine beetle outbreak from becoming an epidemic?

The question came to light early in the fall of 2019. USDA Forest Service entomologists had just conducted aerial surveys in coordination with the Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS). On-the-ground investigations followed. Soon specialists revealed their diagnosis: after decimating 3.4 million acres of forests across Colorado from 1996 until the epidemic finally ran its course around 2014 , mountain pine beetles were back, actively infesting approximately 600 acres of lodgepole pine forests across private and National Forest System lands in the Gunnison Valley.

Restoring watershed health and habitat connectivity on Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest

With support from the Matching Award Program from the National Forest Foundation, Conservation Northwest worked alongside volunteers and the U.S. Forest Service to restore watershed health and habitat connectivity in this landscape during 2019.

The Pecos Wilderness and a New Generation of Stewards

At New Mexico Wild, we believe it is our duty to be good stewards of places like the Pecos Wilderness so future generations have the same opportunities to experience its vastness and beauty. Over a six-month span in 2018, we recruited 128 volunteers who contributed 938 hours of stewardship service to this beloved outdoor recreation destination.

Restoring “Lost” Trails with Washington Trails Association

Trails link people and wild places. They allow us to connect with nature—and each other. But every year, budget declines and increasingly extreme winters and fire seasons have made it harder to keep our backcountry trails open and accessible. Without the maintenance they need, Washington’s trails are slowly becoming lost.