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A new study about the potential for restoring U.S. forests shows significant gaps in the supply chain that fulfills replanting efforts. The study - combined with possible new federal funding - opens new business opportunities for tree nurseries, seed collection, and workforce needed to significantly boost the nation's tree-planting.
And reforesting U.S. forests is urgently needed to fight climate change and recover from severe wildfires, according to the study's authors.
“To meet the need for reforestation, we’ll need to invest in more trees, more nurseries, more seed collection, and a bigger workforce,” said the study’s lead author, Joe Fargione of The Nature Conservancy. “In return we’ll get carbon storage, clean water, clean air, and habitat for wildlife.”
The study, published in the science journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, was co-authored by 18 scientists from universities, nonprofits, businesses, and state and federal agencies. One aspect of the study involved surveying nurseries around the country to gauge their capacity and other needs for growing tree seedlings.
Researchers also identified 64 million acres of natural and agricultural lands in the U.S. that could be replanted to forest, nearly half of the country's total reforestation opportunity. Accounting for different planting densities by region, it would require 30 billion trees to reforest these lands. This equates to 1.7 billion more tree seedlings produced each year for this land to be reforested by 2040.
Planting that amount each year would be more than twice the country's current nursery production. Currently the U.S. produces 1.3 billion seedlings per year.
To achieve this large increase, investment is required across the entire reforestation “pipeline.” Additional investment would be needed to expand capacity for seed collection and storage, tree nursery expansion, workforce development, and improvements in pre- and post-planting practices.
To encourage nursery expansion, low-interest or forgivable loans and long-term contracts will be needed. Across the pipeline, achieving this scenario will require public support for investing in these activities, plus incentives for landowners to reforest. The investments will create jobs in rural communities, not only in nurseries but across the whole spectrum of reforestation activities - from seed collection, to preparing sites for planting, to post-planting management activities essential to growing healthy young stands.
There are several existing reforestation programs in the U.S. that could be scaled up to put the new study’s information to work. On public lands this includes the Reforestation Trust Fund, which can be enhanced via the soon-to-be-introduced federal REPLANT Act to fully fund reforestation of America’s national forests. On private lands, they include the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), as well as state conservation agency cost-share programs.
“Nurseries are critical to our national carbon removal ambitions, but they face serious labor and funding shortfalls," said Brian Kittler, senior director of forest restoration for American Forests. "New `green recovery' proposals from the Biden administration, such as the Civilian Climate Corps, could grow the country’s reforestation workforce. At the same time, removing the outdated cap on the Reforestation Trust Fund would free up more money for the U.S. Forest Service to grow and plant trees.”
“Wildfires and insect outbreaks are being exacerbated by climate change and natural tree regeneration is being limited by the size of these disturbances," said Matthew Hurteau, associate professor of biology at the University of New Mexico. "Planting is the only way we will reestablish forest cover in many of these areas and our lack of national nursery capacity is going to create a real bottleneck in seedling supply.”