Award Winning Program in the South to be Filmed by America’s Forests

America’s Forests with Chuck Leavell noticed a program that needed to be documented called the Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention program (SFLR). As the Forbes article that came out on July 26, 2018 said “the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development(HUD) and the Council on Foundationsannounced the 2018 winners of the sixth annual Secretary’s Award for Public-Philanthropic Partnerships, recognizing excellence among the two sectors which improves quality of life for low- and moderate-income residents across the country.”

“It’s this collaborative approach to service that will lead us to find solutions to help the most vulnerable,” HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson said when presenting awards to the ten recipients in Washington, D.C. The goal of the SFLR is to help promote intergenerational forestland retention and wealth creation for African-American landowners. In many cases, the programs work is helping black farmers to climb back from a negative tide that has been going on for decades. By comparison, African-American farmland peaked in 1910 at 15 million acres to just 2.4 million acres in 1997. By 1999, only 1% of all privately-owned rural lands were black-owned.” Ryan Velez wrote for the Your Black World article about SFLR.

The SFLR program currently supports eight project sites across seven states and more than 800 landowners, who own a combined 68,423 acres. The goal is to help connect landowners to specialized networks of forestry and legal services providers. These networks are coordinated by trusted community-based organizations (CBOs), which combine different resources and connections including non-profits, universities, and the private sector. The eight CBOs are as follows:

Black Family Land Trust (VA)

Center for Heirs’ Property Preservation (SC)

Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund (AL)

Limited Resources Landowner Education Assistance Network (AL)

McIntosh Sustainable Environment and Economic Development (GA)

Roanoke Electric Cooperative (NC)

University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (AR)

Winston County Self Help Cooperative (MS)

“Working forests benefit us all. Many public benefits flow from private lands. They are essential in providing clean air and water, habitat for fish and wildlife, forest products and recreational opportunities.”- USDA U.S. Forest Service (USFS)

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