Alabama Power and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) announced awards of more than $225,000 for longleaf pine restoration projects across Alabama.

The grants are part of the NFWF Longleaf Stewardship Fund, which supports the restoration and conservation of the longleaf pine ecosystems across the Southeast. Since 2004, Alabama Power, Southern Company and NFWF have invested more than $8.7 million in projects to restore more than 82,000 acres of longleaf pine forest and the species that rely on it.

“This partnership is one of the many ways Alabama Power is able to support environmental stewardship projects across our state,” said Matt Bowden, vice president of Environmental Affairs for Alabama Power. “These grants are important to helping expand conservation efforts that have already had a tremendous impact on longleaf pine in Alabama since our partnership began eight years ago.”

Alabama projects receiving grant support this year are:

• More than $75,000 to provide outreach and technical assistance to more than 150 landowners to reestablish and manage 2,000 acres of longleaf pine forest. The project is a partnership between the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund Inc., Longleaf Alliance, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Wildlife Federation and Auburn, Tuskegee and Alabama A&M universities.

• An award of $150,000 to establish 100 acres of longleaf in portions of the Splinter Hill Bog Preserve in Alabama and the Perdido Preserve in Florida. The partnership between the Nature Conservancy and the National Turkey Federation will encourage and assist private landowners with controlled burn management of longleaf pine ecosystems.

This year, 16 projects across six states were awarded $2.88 million in grants through the Longleaf Stewardship Fund. It is anticipated that through these projects more than 11,000 acres of longleaf pine habitat will be restored and an additional 122,000 acres will be enhanced, benefitting an incredible diversity of species native to the longleaf ecosystem. 

The longleaf pine ecosystem once covered more than 90 million acres across nine states, from Virginia to Texas. Today, only 3 percent of the original acreage remains, with 29 threatened and endangered species depending on the shrinking habitat, including the red-cockaded woodpecker, the gopher tortoise and the indigo (pine) snake.

Alabama Power, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Company (NYSE: SO), provides electricity to more than 1.4 million customers across the state. To learn more about the company’s environmental stewardship efforts, visit www.alabamapower.com and click “environmental.”

To learn more about NFWF, visit www.nfwf.org.