Landscape Scale Restoration Grant Program for Non-Federal Lands

The Forest Service is offering this one LSR non-federal lands Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) which replaces the three regional (Southern/IITF, Western, and Northeast/Midwestern) NOFOs. The purpose of the Landscape Scale Restoration (LSR) Program is to encourage collaborative, science-based restoration of priority forest landscapes. This competitive grant program supports collaborative high impact projects that lead to measurable outcomes on priority forest landscapes, leverage public and private resources, and further priorities identified in a State Forest Action Plan or equivalent science-based restoration strategy. Proposals should reduce wildfire risk, improve fish and wildlife habitats, maintain or improve water quality and watershed function, and/or mitigate invasive plants, insects, and disease.

Eligible Lands: LSR projects must be conducted on rural non-industrial private forest land, and/or rural state or local government forest land. See NOFO for more definitions. For the purposes of this program, “rural” is defined as all areas outside Census places greater than 50,000 people according to the latest United States Census. Please use the LSR Project Planning Tool (Project Eligibility) to confirm if your proposed project location is eligible within this definition.

Individual Award Funding:

Minimum: $100,000 per project. $50,000 per project for the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Freely Associated States of the Republic of Palau (Palau), the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

Maximum: $300,000 for single-state projects; $600,000 for multi-state projects.

Cost Share Required: Grant recipients must match (cost share) the Federal grant funds 1:1 with non-Federal sources.

State Forester Sponsorship: All applications except those submitted by federally recognized Tribes and Tribal organizations require the relevant State Forester(s) to sponsor the project. Each State Forester may sponsor/participate in up to a total of 10 applications, including up to 5 single-state applications and up to 5 multi-state applications.

For Tribes and Tribal organizations: Federally Recognized Tribes are limited to 2 applications for this NOFO. There is a separate national LSR NOFO for federally recognized Tribes and Tribal organizations: USDA-FS-2026-LSR-TRIBAL. Federally recognized Tribes and Tribal organizations may apply to either or both NOFOs but cannot receive more than one award for the same scope of work.

For additional information and requirements, please refer to the NOFO document, which is posted in both the "Related Documents" tab and in the "Instructions" link located in the "Package" tab.