Longleaf Landscape Stewardship Fund 2025 Request for Proposals

The longleaf pine ecosystem once encompassed more than 90 million acres of North America, from Virginia to Texas. Unique to the southeastern United States, it contains a stunning diversity of plants and animals, including rare and endangered wildlife like the indigo snake, red-cockaded woodpecker and gopher tortoise. Unfortunately, less than 5 percent of the original acreage remains, and threatened and endangered species that depend on the habitat are struggling to survive.

The Longleaf Landscape Stewardship Fund is a landmark public-private partnership supported with federal funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bezos Earth Fund, International Paper's Forestland Stewards Partnership, Southern Company, Altria Group and The Orton Foundation, an affiliate of The Moore Charitable Foundation, founded by Louis Bacon, and Energy Transfer.

Funding priorities for this program include:

• ​Restoring the longleaf pine ecosystem through collaborative and result-oriented actions that help advance the goals of the Range-Wide Conservation Plan for Longleaf Pine;
• Maintaining, enhancing and expanding productive understory habitat of the longleaf pine ecosystem;
• Aiding federal agencies in achieving their mission-oriented objectives;
• Supporting the recovery of iconic species through habitat enhancements;
• Strengthening the capacity of local organizations to establish, advance or lead local longleaf pine ecosystem restoration efforts; and
• Expanding the number of landowners engaged in longleaf pine restoration and maintenance on private lands, and supporting working forests by demonstrating their environmental and socioeconomic benefits.

The Longleaf Landscape Stewardship Fund builds on the success of the Longleaf Legacy Program, a partnership between Southern Company and NFWF since 2004, which has invested more than $108 million into projects that will restore more than 300,000 acres of longleaf pine forest and the native species that rely on it.​