OREANDA-NEWS.  Norfolk Southern has received a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) to help manage and enhance its 6,200 acres of longleaf pine at the railroad's Brosnan Forest wildlife preserve and conference center near Charleston S.C.
The NFWF recently awarded USD  3.1 million to 15 projects to support the restoration of the longleaf forest, one of North America's most threatened forest ecosystems. The projects are expected to restore more than 13,500 acres of native habitat and enhance an additional 140,000 acres on public and private lands. Brosnan Forest will receive USD  62,000 in funding, through a grant to The Longleaf Alliance, to manage and enhance its longleaf pine forest, one of the largest remaining stands in the United States.
Longleaf forests once covered more than 90 million acres from Virginia to Texas, but after years of timber harvesting, agricultural expansion, and urban development, just 3.4 million acres, about three percent of the original acreage, remains. The longleaf ecosystem is one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems outside the tropics, supporting hundreds of plant and wildlife species and providing critical habitat for more than half of the Southeast's amphibians and reptiles and 29 federally protected species.