Last progress March 13, 2025 (8 months ago)
Introduced on March 13, 2025 by Kirsten Gillibrand
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
This bill sets up a new program at the Department of Agriculture to keep forests as forests. It uses long-term agreements (called easements) to limit development and support active forest management on private land and land owned by Indian Tribes, while landowners keep ownership and can keep working their forests. The program’s core goals are to protect working forests, restore and improve wildlife habitat (especially for endangered or at‑risk species), and reduce forest break‑up across the landscape.
There are two ways to take part. Approved partners can get cost‑share funds to buy forest land easements, and landowners can work directly with the Secretary to create “forest reserve” easements that focus on habitat gains. Projects that most help endangered species come first, with extra credit for reducing fragmentation, restoring native forests, and storing more carbon .