Press Releases

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) today announced that domestic manufacturers and importers of softwood lumber have voted to approve the formation of a softwood lumber research and promotion program.  AMS held a referendum from May 23 to June 10, 2011, to determine whether to implement the Softwood Lumber Research, Promotion, Consumer Education […]

The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment) today announced that it has engaged former U.S. Ambassador, David H. Wilkins, as outside general counsel. “When our current counsel opted to step aside for personal health reasons, we immediately spoke to David Wilkins about his interest in working with the Endowment,” said Endowment President Carlton […]

Torrefied wood may be an excellent companion to coal as utilities across the nation seek ways to increase the use of renewable energy sources and reduce their carbon footprint.  The first in a series of co-branded briefs, Issues in the Forest, produced jointly by the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment) and National […]

The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment) today released a series of “Endowment Initiative Overviews.”   “As part of our commitment to transparency and in an effort to share learnings from our work with others who are interested, we developed these documents to put our programmatic work in context of our ‘Theory of Change’,” said Endowment President Carlton […]

Last evening before a star-studded crowd representing the who’s who of forests in the U.S., Secretary of Agriculture  Tom Vilsack went where none of his predecessors had ever gone.  Using the launch of the United Nation’s  International Year of Forests 2011 as backdrop, Vilsack committed the USDA Forest Service and the entire USDA to “preferentially […]

What do Amazon rainforests and the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment) have in common?  Tamar Datan. Datan, Executive Vice President of the Virginia-based Amazon Conservation Team, has been unanimously elected to a position on the Endowment’s Board of Directors effective April 1, 2011. “We couldn’t be more pleased that someone with Tamar’s diverse […]

The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment) today released copies of its Annual Report 2010.  “Given that the United Nations declared 2011 as the International Year of Forests, we opted to have our 2010 Annual Report do double-duty,” said Endowment President Carlton Owen.  “We not only highlighted the state of our work but decided […]

The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (Endowment) today announced that it is partnering with an ad-hoc group of U.S. hardwood industry leaders operating as the “Blue Ribbon Committee on Hardwood Check-off” (BRC) to seek formal approval of a commodity marketing program for a range of hardwood and plywood products. “Simply stated, the Endowment is […]

In its landmark report, “Private Forests, Public Benefits” the USDA Forest Service identified the 15 watersheds across the nation most threatened by increased housing development.  “When we studied that report we were surprised to find that our own headquarters based in Greenville, SC, sat in the middle of the watershed rated as the 10th most threatened […]

Since launching its Healthy Forests; Healthy Watersheds Initiative in partnership with the Natural Resources Conservation Service in early 2010, the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment) has been studying and investing more deeply in the potential of water as an environmental market to advance forest health and retention.  “One of our most difficult […]