American Forests Speaks For The Trees In Washington DC

Solving the climate crisis will take a lot of different strategies and approaches, but at the New Belgium Family Foundation, we think that one of the best strategies out there is planting trees and keeping our forests healthy. That’s why we decided to support American Forests with a three-year operating grant for their forestry work in Colorado and California.

American Forests is the U.S.’s oldest non-profit, and was instrumental in the formation of the U.S. Forest Service. In recent years, American Forests has been at the front and center in advocating for conserving and restoring forests as a key strategy for climate change adaptation and mitigation. As part of this effort, the organization helped to develop the first detailed federal legislation to address nature-based climate change solutions. The Climate Stewardship Act of 2019 (SD. 2452) would provide funding to plant 16 billion trees on public land by 2050, capturing more than 13 billion metric tons of CO2 by the end of the century.

Additionally, American Forests helped pass a provision in the most recent Farm Bill that doubled the amount of federal funds available for forest restoration projects.

In Colorado and California, forests are facing a myriad of threats from fire and beetle infestations. In replanting and restoring these damaged landscapes, American Forests takes a forward-looking approach and tries to ensure that the genetic make up of the restored area will be more resilient to a changing climate.

Learn more about American Forests here.