Author: Secretary Reid Wilson
More than 200,000 acres of land have been preserved or restored. Over 28 million metric tons of greenhouse gases were removed from the air and $421 million in funding.
Sounds like a huge deal, right? It is, and those are just the topline numbers.
Last week, I was thrilled to join U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan and Governor Roy Cooper at The Nature Conservancy’s Green Swamp Preserve in Brunswick County to celebrate this historic $421 MILLION grant award under the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) program to support a broad array of nature-based climate change solutions. The Biden-Harris administration recognized North Carolina as a nationwide leader in fighting climate change, due in large part to Governor Cooper’s bold and innovative leadership.
With this funding, over 200,000 acres of coastal habitats, forests, and farmland will be preserved, enhanced, or restored across North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. This grant will enable our state to conserve more natural lands and restore degraded streams, wetlands, and forests. These lands and waterways will pull carbon out of the air, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 28 million metric tons by 2050, and protecting communities from intense flooding and other devastating effects of climate change. Importantly, a key component of the work will be engaging with local communities on the front end to ensure that their needs are being addressed.
This grant is by far the largest federal grant that our department has ever received. What makes me especially proud is that the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources staff applied for the grant, and we will manage it for all four states over the five years of the grant! This would not have happened without our excellent team going above and beyond.
We are ready and excited to lead this endeavor! It’s a big part of what our department already does.
Our Division of Parks and Recreation manages over 260,000 acres—including state parks, trails, and natural areas. The North Carolina Land and Water Fund has conserved over a half million acres of land, including wetlands, and protected or restored 3,000 miles of streams and rivers. Our Natural Heritage Program is a trusted source of data for evaluating conservation and development projects.
The grant will help us reach the goals in Governor Cooper’s Executive Order 305, which sets the most ambitious environmental conservation and restoration targets in our state’s history—to conserve 1 million new acres of forests and wetlands, to restore 1 million new acres of forests and wetlands, and to plant 1 million new trees in urban areas.
Because the natural environment does not know state boundaries, we’re thrilled to partner with our neighboring states of South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. And we have strong partnerships with the nonprofit land conservation and environmental groups that will be crucial to this massive project.
We are at an historic moment in the continual effort to protect our air, water, land, and climate for future generations. Implementation of this grant over the next five years will create huge momentum in fighting climate change and making our state more resilient to its harmful effects. We’re eager to get going!