The Nature Conservancy Applauds Bush Administration's Proposal for FY2004 Forest Legacy Projects

Program Will Protect Thousands of Forested Acres Across United States, including a Conservation Priority Site in Georgia—Broxton Rocks Preserve

Atlanta, GA — January 31, 2003 — The Nature Conservancy applauds the Bush Administration's request for $91 million in funding for the Forest Legacy Program in Fiscal Year 2004. The Administration's proposal includes $20.6 million for nine Nature Conservancy projects in the United States—including $1.5 million for the protection of Broxton Rocks Preserve in Coffee County, Ga.

If approved, the Forest Legacy appropriations to these conservation projects will be matched 3-to-1 by additional funds from other federal, state, local and private sources.

"We are happy that the Bush administration recognizes the critical need to allocate resources toward protecting America's forests," said Steve McCormick, president of The Nature Conservancy. "Our nation's woodlands harbor a wealth of plants and wildlife and provide a host of benefits for local communities—it is imperative that these precious landscapes endure and thrive."

Nature Conservancy-supported projects included in the Bush Administration's budget proposal announced today will protect almost 153,000 forested acres in Alabama, California, Delaware, Georgia, Maine, New York, Rhode Island, Virginia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

"This funding, if approved, will be a tremendous asset to The Nature Conservancy's conservation work in Georgia, as well as throughout the United States," said Tavia McCuean, vice president and Georgia state director of The Nature Conservancy. "Broxton Rocks is such a special place, full of biological diversity. The Forest Legacy funding will enable us to enhance our conservation work at this priority site."

Sculpted over centuries by the waters of Rocky Creek into a myriad of fissures and shallow ravines, the "Rocks" is a haven of unique habitats for globally rare and endemic plants and animals. There are more than 525 species of plants found at the site, 26 of which are rare.

The 1,534-acre preserve protects a rugged sandstone outcrop that extends for approximately four miles in southeastern Georgia. The rock system is the largest single extrusion of the Altamaha Grit, a band of subsurface sandstone that underlies about 15,000 square miles of Georgia's Coastal Plain. This preserve is one small piece of a remarkable landscape that covers approximately 3,5000 acres in southeast Georgia.

The federally threatened eastern indigo snake and state threatened gopher tortoise are found here as well as over 100 species of birds, which either nest or migrate through this landscape. The Nature Conservancy now manages this land using prescribed fire to enhance the longleaf pine wiregrass community and the many rare plants and animals that depend upon this habitat.

The Forest Legacy Program is a partnership between the United States Forest Service (USFS), state governments and private landowners that identifies and protects ecologically important forest habitat which is threatened by possible development or unsustainable practices. Program objectives are met through land acquisition or the use of conservation easements, which protect working forests while meeting important conservation goals.

"The Nature Conservancy has enjoyed close partnerships with the U.S. Forest Service and individual state governments on Forest Legacy projects, sharing common goals of protecting critical forest habitat and saving each state's own forest legacy for its citizens," said Scott Davis, state director for the Tennessee Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. "We now urge Congress to finish the budget for Fiscal Year 2003 and to support increasing levels of funding for the Forest Legacy Program in FY2004 and in years to come so that we can turn these goals into realities."

The Bush Administration's Forest Legacy Program budget is part of the larger Fiscal Year 2004 funding bill for the Department of the Interior and the US Forest Service.

The Nature Conservancy is currently waiting for a Congressional vote to appropriate funds to its proposed Fiscal Year 2003 Forest Legacy projects which will protect over 110,000 acres in Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin.