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What we've been up to. . .
Impacts
There are currently over 700 active LLA members, some renewing their membership for the 9th time. These members range from individuals to agencies. The Alliance has become the clearinghouse for information on “all things longleaf” and the catalyst for longleaf activities among its partners. These partners include state and federal natural resource agencies, forest industry, environmental groups, natural resource consultants, nurserymen, and private forest landowners. The Alliance website has had over 25,500 hits in the last 2 years.
Since 1996 approximately 600 million longleaf pine seedlings were sold and planted on about 1 million acres. The yearly production is variable depending upon the availability of federal and state programs, but the average production of 75 million seedlings/year represents a seven-fold increase over 1984 seedling production.
Conferences and Workshops
• 5 major regional conferences
• 2 ecosystem specific conferences
• 2 Containerized Longleaf Nursery Conferences
• 1 Symposium on Understory Restoration
• 1 Symposium on Birds of the Longleaf Forest Ecosystem
• 450 smaller workshops
Participants attending the 5 major conferences break down as follows; 28% federal (Forest Service, U.S. Fish & Wildlife), 16% state (Forestry Commissions, State Wildlife), 24% university/research institutes, 9% consultants, 9% non-industrial private landowners (of whom about 60% show up for every meeting), 6% nonprofits (The Nature Conservancy, land trusts, etc.), 6% vendors (seedling nurseries, equipment dealers, etc.), and 2% industrial landowners (International Paper, Weyerhaeuser, etc.).
Since its inception the LLA has hosted or presented at over 450 smaller workshops focusing on specific topics (nursery management, seedling quality, planting techniques, etc.) or for specific interest groups (educational, civic, general public, landowners, etc.). This works out to about 1 workshop/week over the nine year period and LLA personnel drive about 40,000 miles a year presenting and participating in local, regional, and national meetings. Approximately 70% of those meetings hosted can be classified as Private Landowner Workshops. These meetings average about 40 people where approximately 75% are county agents, consultants and other professionals who interface directly with private landowners and about 25% are private landowners.
An estimated 200 workshops have been conducted in Alabama, 159 in Georgia, 40 in Florida, 38 in South Carolina, 15 in Mississippi, 10 in North Carolina, 5 in Louisiana, 2 in Virginia, 2 in Texas, and 3 outside the natural range of longleaf pine.
It is impossible to estimate the number of one-on-one meetings with individuals on their properties, the number of daily phone calls, or the number of emails sent and received over the last 9 years, but the number would be in the thousands.
Publications and Videos
The Alliance has contributed to four books, including a chapter entitled “Restoring Longleaf Pine to the Overstory” in a forthcoming book edited by the University of Florida and published by Springer-Verlag. This chapter is accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation for classroom use and an accompanying video. Another book chapter entitled “Restoring longleaf pine ecosystems in the southern U.S.” is included in the recently published Restoration of Boreal and Temporal Forests. The Alliance also contributed to Larry Earley’s new book, Searching for Longleaf: The Fall and Rise of a Forest and facilitated the reprinting of Frederick Schwarz’s 1907 publication, The Longleaf Pine in Virgin Forest - A Silvical Study.
The Alliance has contributed to the publication of several non-refereed publications on longleaf pine management. Included in this group are “Stewardship of Longleaf Pine Forests: A Guide for Landowners” and “Managing the Forests and the Trees: A Private Landowner’s Guide to Conservation Management of Longleaf Pine”. There have been articles on longleaf pine in numerous non-technical magazines, including “The Fire Forest”, published by the Georgia Wildlife Federation and an entire edition of Alabama’s TREASURE Forest magazine dedicated to the species.
The Alliance has produced a number of “in-house” publications aimed at landowners and management practitioners. These “Longleaf Notes” are designed to transmit research results to landowners in a practical and usable format and are available in hard copy or on the Longleaf Alliance website.
Publications in refereed journals include articles in Ecological Restoration, The Journal of Forestry, Forest Management and Research, Tipularia and the Canadian Journal of Forest Research.
The Alliance has participated in the production of or produced 6 videos. These include 3 titles in the Discovering Alabama series: The Longleaf Pine Ecosystem; Longleaf Pine; and Discovering Covington County. In addition, the Alliance was featured in a Georgia Public Television video on longleaf pine forests in that state. Dean Gjerstad, Alliance Co-Director, developed and wrote the scripts for 2 videos produced by Auburn University’s Media Production group for the Alliance. The first video, “Partners in Action” provides a brief overview of the Longleaf Alliance and discusses the longleaf pine ecosystem and the need for the recovery of the ecosystem and its proper management. It emphasizes that the best approach to achieve this is through partnerships with public agencies, organizations and most importantly, private landowners and private industry. The second video, “Longleaf Pine: Artificial Regeneration,” presents information to assist landowners and forest managers who are planning to plant longleaf pine seedlings.