Grant offers funds for forest restoration, climate resiliency

Individuals and organizations interested in planting native trees and removing invasive weeds to help with climate resiliency can apply for a new grant opportunity, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources announced Wednesday.

A total of $4.5 million is available from a grant from the Regional Conservation Partnership Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The funding opportunity prioritizes work in upper-elevation native forests that receive the most rainfall and are critical to recharging freshwater supplies, according to a DLNR news release. Additionally, lands and projects with the highest potential for carbon sequestration (if reforested) are also targeted with this funding.

The project seeks to include sites that are part of a landscape-scale watershed management strategy to lessen the impacts from climate change, reduce flooding and erosion onto coral reefs and protect biological diversity.

“With year-round warm climate and fertile soils, Hawaii is one of the most efficient places to plant trees to sequester carbon,” said J.B. Martin, acting director for the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. “These forests also buffer against the worsening threats of climate change by absorbing cloud moisture and replenishing our freshwater supplies. When invasive species degrade these forests, we also lose our irreplaceable plants and wildlife.”

Applications are due Aug. 5 at hands.ehawaii.gov/hands/ opportunities/opportunity-de tails/21622.