OSI Southern Cumberland Land Protection Fund Grant

The OSI Southern Cumberland Land Protection Fund aims to protect vital forest habitats in Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, focusing on areas crucial for biodiversity and climate change adaptation. Launched in 2012, this fund has already safeguarded over 30,000 acres through grants, enhancing wildlife habitats and expanding recreational access. By supporting high-priority projects, it plays a significant role in conserving the rich ecological landscapes of the Southern Cumberland Plateau, ensuring the long-term viability of unique species.

NOTE: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until all funding has been committed.
On the Southern Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, a landscape of unrivaled ecological richness, we are helping to save forest strongholds for plant and animal species.
Guided by our research on how the Southern Appalachians will respond to climate change, OSI launched the Fund in 2012 to accelerate the protection of forests on the plateau most likely to support species diversity as the climate shifts.
Why Southern Cumberland Land Protection Fund
A tenth of the world’s biodiversity can be found in the astonishingly varied landscapes and habitats of the Southeast. One of the most ecologically rich parts of the region is the remote and still largely wild Southern Cumberland Plateau.
With its vast hardwood forests, rocky ridges, lush ravines, underground caves, and limestone soils, the plateau supports a great diversity of aquatic and terrestrial life – including species found nowhere else on Earth. These same features make the plateau a refuge for wildlife diversity as the climate charges.
State parks and wildlife management areas have set aside some important forestlands on the plateau, but large tracts remain unprotected from development, unsustainable timber harvesting, mining, and invasive species. In a series of grant and loan funds begun in 2004, OSI has attracted attention and resources to the conservation of the best wildlife habitat in the Southern Appalachians.
The Southern Cumberland Land Protection Fund focuses on the plateau’s high-priority lands for species diversity and climate change adaptation, as identified by OSI’s Protecting Southern Appalachian Wildlife in an Era of Climate Change, State Wildlife Action Plans, and other landscape conservation plans.
Impact of the Fund
Capitalized with grants from the Lyndhurst and Benwood Foundations and Merck Family Fund, OSI’s Southern Cumberland Land Protection Fund protects wildlife habitat and biodiversity in landscapes that are critical to facilitating adaptation to climate change.
As of 2018, fourteen capital grants protected more than 30,000 acres of forestland on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama.
Connecting and expanding blocks of protected habitat, these projects conserved globally significant terrestrial and aquatic species and facilitated species adaptation to climate change.
Many of the projects enlarged state parks and wildlife management areas, increasing access for hiking, hunting, and other outdoor recreation.
Grant opportunities
Capitalized with grants from the Lyndhurst and Benwood Foundations and Merck Family Fund, the Fund awards grants for permanent conservation easements or fee purchases of large forest blocks in the portion of the Southern Cumberland Plateau shown on this map (see PDF of map).
Capital grants are available to qualified nonprofit organizations to acquire permanent conservation easements and/or fee interests in land. Under exceptional circumstances, OSI will also provide funds directly to state or local government agencies. Grants may also be used to defray transaction and other associated costs. Limited stewardship funding will be granted only when a convincing case is made that it is necessary to enable the transaction. Short-term low-interest loans, to bridge gaps of up to two years in permanent public or private funding, are also available.

Eligibility

The Fund looks for projects within the grant region that permanently preserve contiguous, high-priority forest blocks, especially those most likely to protect long-term species diversity as the climate changes. To be considered, the project must meet the following Threshold Criteria: Include or directly impact land within the Grant Fund Region.Contribute to the conservation of high-priority forest blocks identified in OSI’s Protecting Southern Appalachian Wildlife in an Era of Climate Change, or as core forest on page 31 of “Cumberland Voices: A Conservation Vision for the South Cumberland Region.”Permanently protect land through acquisition of fee interest and/or conservation easement that meets or exceeds OSI Conservation Easement and Stewardship Standards.Be spearheaded by organizations with the long-term stewardship capacity and financial ability to execute the transaction.Be completed within 18 months of receiving notification of OSI’s grant award.

Ineligibility

Grants may not be used to pay interest on loans, staff time, mileage, travel expenses and general overhead.Projects which close before the application deadline are not eligible for funding.