To our partners in urban forestry, this opportunity applies to you as much as it does to other forests and forest managers in rural, wildland and wildland-urban interface areas:

The Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) works to protect Washington’s forests in wildland, rural and urban areas.

Our forests keep our drinking water clean, control floods, purify our air, enhance community livability and are home to countless wildlife species. In order to help preserve these benefits, DNR and the U.S. Forest Service work together through combined state and private forestry programs, including the Landscape Scale Restoration Competitive Grant Process (LSR).

LSR proposals leverage DNR and partner resources to offer tangible support for projects that help conserve, protect, enhance and restore forests across the diverse landscapes of Washington. To that end, DNR wants to submit the best and most important projects for federal funding competition. 

We request that potential partners submit letters of interest and collaborate with us to develop Landscape Scale Restoration Competitive Grant proposals that meet the following national priorities:

  • Protect forests from threats through maintaining federal, state and local agency capacity in wildland fire preparedness, prevention and response.
  • Conserve and manage working forest landscapes through promoting and sustaining a viable forest products industry that supports resource management and sapling restoration on all lands and minimizing forest conversion and fragmentation through conservation easements, appropriate development planning and effective intergenerational transfer.
  • Enhance public benefits from trees and forests through actively and sustainably managing trees, forests and watersheds for ecosystem health, economic benefits and community resilience.

LSR projects cross boundaries to affect any combination of federal, state, tribal, county, municipal or private lands. For example, a riparian habitat restoration project might impact the entire length of a waterway that passes through lands, which are owned and managed by different agencies, organizations or individuals.

Funding for LSR projects comes from the U.S. Forest Service State and Private Forestry branch. Funding of projects aims to address forest conservation, protection and enhancement needs in priority areas identified in Washington’s Forest Action Plan. DNR works to ensure that federal dollars are invested in locally supported projects that address issues of national importance and provide meaningful, lasting and measurable outcomes.

LSR projects have a maximum grant request of $240,000.

Please visit DNR’s website for more information about the Landscape Scale Restoration Grants. Interested partners are advised to download and review a copy of the Request for Proposals (RFP) and Washington’s Forest Action Plan prior to submitting letters of interest.

Applicant Eligibility

Open to state and local government agencies, tribes, non-profit organizations and educational institutions.

Deadline for Letter of Interest

March 10, 2017

4:30 p.m. (PST)