1. Strategic Priorities and Actions: 2013-2015
FCC Report to America’s Great Outdoors
Ken Arney
USDA Forest Service
I want to take a few minutes to discuss with you the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative and the Federal Coordinating Committee Report to AGO. I’ll provide a brief summary of that Report, but I want to start by giving you an overview of the America’s Great Outdoors.

2. America’s Great Outdoors
The AGO Initiative was launched in 2010
Conserving and restoring large landscapes is key component
MOU between nine federal agencies signed in 2012 coordinate
Landscape-level demonstration areas
America’s Longleaf Restoration Initiative is one of five landscape
demonstration areas identified Nation-wide
President Obama launched the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative ( in 2010, calling on the Secretaries of the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality to develop a 21st-century conservation agenda that will protect America’s natural and cultural resources, and connect people to the outdoors through jobs, education, recreation and service.
A key component of the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative (AGO) is conserving and restoring large landscapes. Successful landscape-scale conservation efforts, inherently cross-jurisdictional, demand collaboration across federal agencies and with state and local partners to achieve more effective alignment and better leveraging of resources. In the fall of 2011, a Council on Environmental Quality convened AGO workgroup established five regional interagency landscape conservation teams to promote coordination, improved communication, and collaboration with local partners. The regional teams are focused on five landscapes, which will serve as demonstration sites and models for aligning, targeting, and better leveraging federal resources and achieving more strategic landscape conservation outcomes. The five landscapes are: the longleaf pine forests of the Southeast; the deserts of the Southwest; the grasslands of the northern Great Plains; the Crown of the Continent in the northern Rockies; and the northern forests and waters of New England.
In 2012, an AGO Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed by the heads of nine federal agencies for the Coordination
of Landscape and Watershed-scale Conservation Demonstration Areas and that focuses on the five AGO demonstration
areas, including the America’s Longleaf Restoration Initiative (ALRI). The FCC for serves at the federal interagency team for the longleaf landscape.

3. “FCC Report to America’s Great Outdoors”
Transmitted the Strategic Priorities and Actions
Provides a description of Federal Programs
America’s Longleaf Restoration Initiative
Strategic Priorities and Actions
The 2012 MOU calls for each AGO landscape to develop a multi-year strategic implementation plan that establishes a shared vision, metrics, goals, objectives, and reporting.
Of course as you know, in October 2012, the Longleaf Partnership Council (LPC) released the ALRI Strategic Priorities and Actions
The FCC feels that the Strategic Priorities and Actions meets the intent for the AGO implementation plan as described in the 2012 MOU and that the LPC provides leadership and strategic direction to the ALRI restoration effort.
The FCC just submitted it’s Report to AGO that:
(1) Transmits the ALRI Strategic Priorities and Actions as “the AGO implementation plan”
AND
(2) Provides a description of the federal programs and contributions needed to support and implement the broad partnership’s Strategic Priorities and Actions over the next three years.

4. Federal Program Priorities and Needs
Increase acres of longleaf establishment
Increase acres of prescribed burning
Enhance restoration delivery on all lands
Maintain and broaden the resource base
Now I want to briefly highlight the federal program priorities identified to support the achievement of strategic priorities identified by the Council
Priority 1: Increase Acres of Longleaf Establishment
Baseline: The FCC estimates that in FY2012 all federal programs contributed to an estimated 55,000 acres of longleaf pine
establishment (75% on private lands).
Additional Support Needed: The FCC projects that annual funding will need to be increased by $7.5 million by FY2015 in
order to increase the annual establishment of longleaf pine to 68,000 acres (mostly on private lands), as called for in Strategic
Priorities and Actions These increases would be targeted through Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)
Farm Bill programs and accelerated restoration efforts on NFS lands. This increased funding, when leveraged with private investments to establish longleaf on large corporate ownerships and on non-industrial forestlands, is expected to allow the attainment of targeted annual longleaf establishment goals by 2015.
Priority 2: Increase Acres of Longleaf Pine Ecosystems Maintained/Improved, Especially with Prescribed Burning
Baseline: The successful implementation of longleaf restoration on both federal and non-federal lands will be heavily influenced
by the ability to implement prescribed burning across the broad landscape. In FY2012, an estimated 1.1 million acres of
longleaf were maintained or improved, mostly through the application of prescribed fire.
Additional Support Needed: The FCC projects the need for a $10 million increase in annual funding by FY2015 in order to
increase prescribed fire by 354,000 acres to an estimated total of 1.4 million acres per year on both public and private lands, as
called for in Strategic Priorities and Actions
Priority 3: Enhance Restoration Delivery across All Lands
Baseline: To take full advantage of any increase in support for establishment and prescribed fire funding (as described above), a commensurate increase in technical assistance for private landowners will be necessary.
Additional Support Needed: The FCC projects a $10 million increase in annual funding by FY2015 is needed to provide additional
technical assistance to private landowners. This would provide increased support to State Foresters, consulting foresters
and those providing technical assistance via non-governmental organizations .
Priority 4: Maintaining and Broadening the Resource Base
The FCC underscores the necessity of maintaining essential support of several current commitments that are substantially contributing
to increasing the resource base for longleaf. These include the Longleaf Stewardship Fund, CRLRP, and NRCS cost-share programs.