Forest Health Protection, Southern Region

The Southern Pine Beetle Prevention Program can include a mix of the following practices depending on what each state believes best fits their program: cost-share incentives for landowners for thinning overgrown pine stands to restore healthy forests, prescribed burning and tree planting, including longleaf pine forest restoration. Logger incentives, landowner education efforts and work on State-owned forest land are also part of the program. Additionally, national forests have thinned forests that were susceptible to southern pine beetle and restored areas impacted in the last outbreak. Since 2004, 13 southern states and 12 national forests have received approximately $100 million in federal funding for this program and have protected more than one million acres of southern pine forest from southern pine beetle, the South’s most destructive forest pest (see Table).

	State Acres	State Program Funding	NFS Acres	NFS Funding	Total Acres	Total Funding
Alabama	53,526	$5,700,000	13,838	$3,050,480	67,364	$8,750,480
Arkansas	80,207	$6,050,000	27,008	$3,805,500	107,215	$9,855,500
Florida	106,000	$5,900,000	8,673	$1,336,000	114,673	$7,236,000
Georgia	188,141	$10,025,000	7,794	$2,483,240	195,935	$12,508,240
Kentucky	9,600	$1,100,000	1,705	$782,480	11,305	$1,882,480
Louisiana	20,822	$950,000	25,229	$3,333,500	46,051	$4,283,500
Mississippi	23,020	$3,074,619	21,008	$2,932,235	44,028	$6,006,854
North Carolina	159,539	$12,350,000	4,503	$1,231,506	164,042	$13,581,506
Oklahoma	4,500	$275,000	0	$0	4,500	$275,000
South Carolina	56,117	$8,900,000	17,286	$3,514,802	73,403	$12,414,802
Tennessee	27,754	$4,850,000	6,909	$1,014,000	34,663	$5,864,000
Texas	129,689	$8,525,000	10,760	$1,960,900	140,449	$10,485,900
Virginia	50,901	$3,925,000	900	$400,000	50,931	$4,325,000
Total	909,816	$71,624,619	144,743	$26,599,233	1,054,559	$98,223,852

Southern Pine Beetle Prevention Program: State and National Forest Funding and Acres Protected.

Southern Pine Beetle Prevention Program

STATE PROGRAMS