Florida Land Steward is presenting a webinar on forest vegetation. Florida Land Steward is a network for helping private landowners to manage their lands with the help of other landowners, extension agents, public and private natural resource professionals involved in private lands. This one-hour webinar will provide an overview of forest vegetation management and herbicide use as a treatment in forests to improve wildlife habitat, combat invasive species, and more. Presenters include Pat Minogue, Associate Professor of Silviculture and Extension Specialist from the University of Florida IFAS School of Forest Resources and Conservation. The webinar will be February 9^th from 2 to 3 pm ET. To register in advance, click here. 

USDA National Resource Conservation Services (NRCS) has a webinar series called, ‘NRCS Conservation Outcomes Webinar Series’ is a one-hour monthly webinar that highlights recent conservation planning, impacts, and assessments from the Farm Bill. The series also focuses on different aspects of farm bill conservation programs. The next webinar in the series will cover Development of the Agricultural Conservation Planning Framework (ACPF). The ACPF is a project to quantify environmental effects on conservation and to develop a guide for conservation policy and program development. The webinar on January 28^th will be about watershed planning and will cover ACPF’s watershed databases that include more than 11,500 small watersheds in the Corn Belt and software tools that can be used in realistic situations to improve agricultural water quality. To learn more about the next webinar in this series, on January 28 at 3 pm ET, click here.

Green Industry professional that were a part of a similar webinar series ‘The woods in your backyard partnership’ are now invited to attend this webinar series by the University of Maryland Extension’s Woodland Stewardship Education Program. This a four-week in-depth training for wildlife habitat enhancement and conflicts, residential riparian buffer installation and maintenance, woodland health practices and harvest, and managing competing and invasive vegetation and non-herbicide controls. Registration for this webinar series costs $40- $85. The webinar begins February 23 at 7 pm EDT. To learn more, register, and see all available dates, click here. 

Southern Regional Extension Forestry (SREF), the University of Georgia and the USFS Southern Research Station are launching the fifth webinar of a seven part series title, “An Overview of Tribal Natural Resources Management,” on January 28.

This webinar will be from 1:00 to 2:00 ET, and features Jonathan Gilbert, of the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission, will present information on “State/Tribal Fisheries Co-Management in Shared Fishery Lakes.”  This webinar will focus on the implementation of court-affirmed treaty fishing rights in the upper Great Lakes region. Learn more about how fishery biologists have developed ways to work together to accomplish common goals and more through this link. To find the other webinars in the series, download this flyer, which includes links to the archived webinars.   

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) is soliciting proposals to expand and enhance longleaf pine ecosystem restoration and management across longleaf pine’s historical range, as well as the restoration and enhancement of bottomland hardwood forests within priority focal areas. The Longleaf Landscape Stewardship Fund is a public-private partnership supported with Federal funding from USDA’s Forest Service (USFS) and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and private funding from International Paper’s Forestland Stewards Partnership, Southern Company, the Arbor Day Foundation, Altria Group and The Orton Foundation, an affiliate of The Moore Charitable Foundation, founded by Louis Bacon. Priority will be given to projects that effectively implement one or more of the strategies below to improve longleaf pine and bottomland hardwood habitats and populations of associated wildlife species. The proposal deadline is February 4. To learn more about the RFP, click here.

The threat of wildfire is becoming increasingly prevalent and dangerous, posing greater risks to people and property than ever before. With challenges to holding large public gatherings in many areas this year, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and State Farm® are hosting the eighth annual Wildfire Community Preparedness Day (Preparedness Day) event on Saturday, May 1, 2021 with a focus on what homeowners can do now to help protect their personal property from wildfire. Years of scientific research support the prescription of removing fuel sources from the area around the home – known as the “home ignition zone” – and is a key component to making a home safe from embers and radiant heat from wildfires. Simple, low cost home improvement projects such as clearing dead leaves, debris, and pine needles from roofs and gutters, keeping lawns and native grasses mowed to a height of four inches, removing anything stored underneath decks or porches that could burn, and other similar actions are being actively supported by NFPA and State Farm on Preparedness Day and can be easily undertaken by the majority of homeowners. Financial support from State Farm will once again enable NFPA to provide 150 applicants from across the country with $500 awards to complete a wildfire risk reduction project on Saturday, May 1. Project applications can be submitted through February 26, 2021. Apply for an award. For more information about Wildfire Community Preparedness Day, funding awards, project ideas, and free resources to download, click here.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) are seeking applicants for the Renewable Resource Extension Act (RREA) grant. There are two main categories for this grant; 1. regional/national projects: The Nexus of Critical Forest and Rangeland Resources Issues and 2. Innovative Approaches to Program Delivery, and Current Knowledge about Nonformal Adult Education.  Proposals for this grant should also consider the following information, does the project: 1) Broaden the scope of a locally produced Extension program by active participation (planning, delivering, evaluating) of Extension agents, specialists and advisors that stretch across a minimum of three states; 2) Directly support forest and rangeland owner issues and needs; 3) Either be new and unproven, but theoretically sound, or represent a significant change to an existing national or regional project; and 4) Address one or more of the forest and rangeland resource issues in the current RREA Strategic Plan, FY 2018-2022. The application deadline is February 8, 2021. To access the Request for proposals, click here.