The following is a guest post written by Jon Schwedler, communications manager for The Nature Conservancy’s Restoring America’s Forests program. For the past 14 years, Jon has worked on forest conservation efforts in Maryland, Virginia, Montana, New Mexico and California.

America’s forests are getting some love this Valentine’s Day.

This good news came in the form of two gifts wrapped in one announcement from the U.S. Forest Service last week. With 193 million acres, the Forest Service is the single biggest manager of forested lands in the U.S., which roughly translates to them overseeing about one in five of our country’s trees.

The first gift is that the Forest Service said it will be increasing the pace of forest restoration by 20% over the next three years. That means in 2014 they will look to restore 4.4 million acres — an area a little bit less than Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon National Parks put together. Not bad, eh?

The second morsel was extra love shared with 14 states, in the form of new local investments in the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP). This relatively new program, created in 2009, brings together folks who used to be at loggerheads over the management of our forests — industry, environmentalists, recreationists, sportsmen — to improve the health of our forests for people, water and wildlife.

Pioneering conservationist John Muir once said he could ride a horse at full gallop through the widely spaced trees of his beloved Sierra Mountains. Today in many of those same places you couldn’t even crawl through the forest. Why?

Because 100 years’ worth of putting out all natural fires has allowed our forests to become “too fat” — they’re now choked with small diameter trees and overgrown brush.

Just as being overweight is bad for people’s health, this portly forest condition also makes our forests less healthy, and less able to provide the live-giving services we rely on. For example, America’s forests store and filter half of our nation’s water supply. They also provide jobs to more than a million wood products workers.

Fat forests also have a dangerous side — they fuel huge, dangerous, costly mega-fires that burn too hot and too fast, like the ones we last year in the Southwest.

So while not exactly a box of chocolates, the Forest Service’s announcement last week to increase the pace of forest restoration was a welcome gift. We are blushing green.

The map below shows the new full list of CFLRP projects, plus the three bonus projects (projects with involvement from The Nature Conservancy are in bold). Can you feel the love?

[Click to download a larger map]

[Top image: Mirror Lake in Yosemite Valley in California. Image source: Patrick Smith.]

1. President Obama addressed clean energy, environmental policy– and even name-checked climate change– in last night’s State of the Union.  (Huffington Post Green)
2. Are you under 31?  Then you probably want a hybrid car.  (CleanTechnica)
3. Scientists discovered 46 new species in the tiny little South American country of Suriname.  (Mongabay)
4. These old dumps are being converted to parks and nature preserves.  (Grist)
5. New research reveals that the sun can’t save us from climate change.  (Guardian.co.uk)

1. Asia’s demand for pangolin meat shows up online. (Mongabay)
2. Sumatran elephants could be extinct in less than 30 years. (WWF)
3. Mercury pollution isn’t just for fish eaters in the Northeast anymore, a new study finds. (New York Times)
4. What are the most threatening invasive species in the North America? (Huffington Post Green)
5. Groundbreaking magnetic soap may help clean up oil spills. (BBC)

1. Looking to relocate? A new island pops up in the Red Sea. (Huffington Post Green)
2. Wyoming gets bragging rights: plans begin for North America’s largest wind farm. (TreeHugger)
3. Say goodbye to packaged foods. (Grist)
4. Meet the world’s smallest invertebrate — you may need your glasses! (Discovery News)
5. The FAA makes an exception: aircraft leads whooping cranes on their migration. (Washington Post)

1. Anchovies are making a North Sea comeback.  Thanks, climate change?  (Conservation Mag)
2. Some rare good news for rhinos– none were poached in Nepal last year!  (Mongabay)
3. The “doomsday clock” jumped a minute forward.  Why?  Climate change.  (CleanTechnica)
4. President Obama visited EPA staff to let them know he still cares.  (Green)
5. Oil rigs could possibly be responsible for turning migratory land-based birds into shark snacks.  (Wired)

1. Most years, 85% of Canada has a white Christmas. This isn’t one of those years. (The National Post)
2. New rules will limit mercury and other toxic pollutants in our air, water and food. (Huffington Post Green)
3. The world’s first solar powered menorah lights up Woodstock, NY. (Grist)
4. The biblical Christmas story may need a rewriting: Frankincense tree headed for extinction. (CBS News)
5. The European Union will begin charging airlines for their greenhouse gas emissions. (NY Times)

1. Is nature more resilient than we give it credit for?  (Time)
2. To encourage recycling, Mexico City is closing one of the world’s largest open-air garbage dumps.  (YaleE360)
3. Does birdsong have a positive effect on human creativity and well-being?  Scientists are going to get to the bottom of it.  (Guardian)
4. The biggest enviro hits and misses of 2011:  celebrity edition.  (Treehugger)
5. Unusually long-living animals may reveal secrets to human longevity.  (Scientific American)

1. When it comes to solar power, just how much solar do you really need?  (CleanTechnica)
2. For sparrows, exposure to spooky sounds leads to fewer babies.  (Green)
3. Do you commute by public transportation?  In 2012, your tax benefit will be halved.  (The Daily Green)
4. You’ll find the two greenest restaurants in the United States in Chicago.  (GreenBiz)
5. Do away with disposables and break out the Tupperware.  You can do it!  (Grist)

Bob Bendick is the director of U.S. Government Relations of The Nature Conservancy.

Lost in the bad news about the failure of the Super Committee to reach agreement on a plan to reduce the nation’s budget deficit was the effort by the leadership of the Senate and House Agriculture Committees to provide a strong bi-partisan proposal on the future of U.S. Farm programs. The Chairs and Ranking Members of the Agriculture Committees agreed on legislative ideas that would cut the Farm Bill budget while continuing the effectiveness of the Farm Bill programs most important to The Nature Conservancy. In doing this the leaders of the Agriculture Committees demonstrated that, even in today’s contentious legislative environment, courage, determination and hard work can produce results that serve the broad interests of the American people. Sadly, however, the Farm Bill agreement could not move forward when the overall Budget Control Act process fell apart.

The Budget Control Act which created the Super Committee process said that House and Senate Authorizing Committees (the committees that draft the legislation that determines the direction of Federal programs) could make substantive recommendations to the Super Committee on how to reduce Federal spending over the next ten years and could put forward ideas about what program changes could best advance agency missions despite those reductions. Most of the authorizing committees did not seem to take this opportunity seriously and, in fact, submitted different recommendations from their Republican and Democratic members. Not the Agriculture Committees, where the committee leadership and their staffs worked night and day for months to hammer out a whole new Farm Bill to recommend to the Super Committee.

This proposed Farm Bill reduced spending by more than $23 billion over 10 years, thus more than meeting the target of the Budget Control Act. And the leaders also looked hard at how programs functioned and how they might be made more cost -effective. The Nature Conservancy is most interested in the Conservation Title of the Farm Bill. While a final version of the Conservation Title recommendations was not released publicly, what we saw and heard about the proposal strongly suggested that, while saving more than $6 billion over ten years, through program consolidation, moving funding around, and ensuring the ability of the Department of Agriculture to focus spending on high priority areas, the Conservation Title programs would continue to produce large scale on the ground conservation even with fewer resources. What’s more, with some certainty of funding in these uncertain times, the Natural Resource Conservation Service, which administers most of the Conservation Title, would be able to plan in advance to make limited money go further.

The question now is how to move this bi-partisan agreement forward in the absence of overall debt reduction legislation. One option is to hitch it to the tax extenders bill that presumably will sort out the payroll tax and unemployment benefits before the end of this year. A second would be to use the Agriculture Committee negotiations as the basis for a new Farm Bill to be voted on early in 2012. This would allow some issues to get further discussion, but would not unravel the progress that has been made. Least desirable would be starting over with a year-long Farm Bill process that might well not produce the positive results already put within the country’s reach by the hard work of the Agriculture Committees.

If I had any real say in the matter, I’d opt for getting the Farm Bill done quickly. How can you beat saving money but being creative enough to serve both the agriculture community and the long term interests of the American people. Swift, bi-partisan action would be an example for the rest of the Congress to follow and a sign of hope that our government can get back on track.

Today marks the third day of the Harte Research Institute’s Gulf Summit in Houston, Texas. (For those who like technical restoration discussions and a little wonk with their lunch, you can watch the remainder of the conference livestreaming at UStream). It has been a hectic week packed with meetings, panels and side conferences all ultimately focused on one thing: achieving the lasting, long-term restoration of the Gulf of Mexico.

Three main themes have become clear in every seminar and presentation: the time to restore the Gulf is now, the imperative of local community involvement and support at every level, and the necessity of passing the RESTORE Act to return the Clean Water Act fines to the Gulf to fund restoration and renewal at the scale that is necessary.

Appropriately enough, the Summit began with the release of the Gulf Task Force’s combined state and federal strategy to restore the Gulf.

(Conferences like this are also a gold mine for acronym bingo. A bunch of NGOs, universities and government agencies all together talking science, we can’t help ourselves – but here are the takeaways. I’ll do my best to keep it as acronym-free as possible).

Restore the Gulf: Comprehensive Strategy

Though many plans for the Gulf have been written, this is the first to actively combine state and federal priorities and to seek and incorporate comment from people across the Gulf – in local communities, from businesses, non-profits and government agencies. The strategy is a tremendous step forward for the Gulf and creates a framework to help many people and organizations working in the region actively work toward the same goal.

Of course the trick with the strategy, as it is with any plan, is how to implement it. That is one of the main issues Summit attendees are grappling with.

Restore the Gulf: Implementation Begins

Here we give kudos to the United State Department of Agriculture, which, through the Natural Resource Conservation Service, is implementing projects aligned with the Gulf Task Force. In the same presentation announcing the strategy, Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, also announced a new $50 million NRCS Gulf of Mexico Initiative. The 3-year program builds on past and existing successful local projects and will help agricultural landowners improve water quality, increase water conservation and enhance wildlife habitat in watersheds that drain directly into the Gulf of Mexico.

In this time of budget scarcity, this is a tremendous investment in the Gulf. Their leadership is inspiring and begins to build the foundation we need for similar programs and commitments.

As important as it is, the NRCS alone, or the Conservancy alone, or any other organization alone, will not be enough to save the Gulf. This is truly a challenge of national proportion and it will take a national commitment to see it through.

Restore the Gulf: A National Problem Needs a National Commitment  (or: Pass the RESTORE Act)

If you like to eat wild-caught shrimp, you have a stake in the future of the Gulf. Same goes for oysters. Same goes if you like to keep gas in your car, and the lights on in your house. More than half of the country’s domestic oil and gas is produced here, and if it’s not produced here, it’s probably refined somewhere on our coast.

The list of the Gulf’s influences on our nation go on and on, and the point is that, though the problems here may appear to be regional – far away from New York or California or New Hampshire – they’re not. That’s just an illusion of geography. Take a closer look at the map, the Gulf is our country’s backyard. And in every way, except latitude and longitude, the challenges here play out across our economy and our culture.

The strongest national commitment we can make to the Gulf is the passage of the bi-partisan RESTORE Act. Help return the Clean Water Act fines to the Gulf. Restoration will occur here, but benefits will accrue far beyond the Gulf state borders.

The Moment is Now

It’s an exciting time in the Gulf, and I hope we can continue to build on the momentum and the obvious commitment people have to restoration. It’s true that the Gulf faces many challenges, but it is also true that they are not insurmountable. And if this week has shown nothing else, it is that there is a strong and surging commitment to change the future of the Gulf of Mexico for the better.

It won’t be easy and it won’t be quick, but it can and must be done.

[Image: Oyster reef restoration at the Alabama Port in the Gulf of Mexico. Image source: Andrew Kornylak]