The Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service is now requesting applications for the Fiscal Year 2021 Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) Grant Program. The USDA anticipates that up to $5.4 million in new funds will be available for reforestation, ecosystem restoration and forest health improvement in the Great Lakes Basin through an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
This year, the USDA is announcing and awarding funding through two grant opportunities at the same time: 1) Cooperative Weed Management Areas and 2) Forest Restoration.
Submit applications by 6 p.m. EST on July 8 in Grants.gov through two separate Requests for Applications:
- The Cooperative Weed Management Areas (CWMA) Request for Applications funds partnership work to address invasive plant species that pose significant ecological threats in the Great Lakes Basin.
- The Forest Restoration (FR) Request for Applications funds projects that
- Mitigate forest insect and disease impacts through targeted reforestation and forest protection
- Reduce runoff from degraded sites through green infrastructure that includes trees, or
- Restore and connect coastal and riparian forest habitats.
Applicants can be state agencies, sovereign tribal nations, nonprofit organizations, educational institutions and local governments that work within the U.S. portion of the Great Lakes Basin. All CWMA funding requests must be submitted through a CWMA or similar organized partnership that manages invasive plants across jurisdictional and land ownership boundaries in a defined area.
Full instructions and all other application materials are available through Grants.gov. Search opportunity number USDA-FS-GLRI-CWMA21 (for CWMA) or USDA-FS-GLRI-FR21 (for FR).
Webinars for prospective applicants were recorded in May. The CWMA webinar recording is located here, and the FR webinar recording is found here.
Links to both opportunities and additional grant information are available on the U.S. Forest Service Eastern Region grants page.