About us and our Partners
With More than 20 Years of Experience
Restore the Earth Foundation (REF) has led successful, large-scale native cypress reforestation projects across the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. One major effort—18,800 acres restored at Salvador Wildlife Management Area, owned by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries—produced Louisiana’s first certified water quality credits, issued to REF by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ).
Restore the Earth Foundation, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation. We’ve unlocked the business case for landscape scale restoration and we’re using it to restore 1 million acres in the Mississippi River Basin, North America’s Amazon.
Our mission is to restore the Earth’s essential forest and wetland ecosystems. We envision the Earth in balance — its original vitality and natural abundance available to all, for generations to come. Since 2008, Restore the Earth has secured over $200 million in private, federal/state funding to reforest over 150,000 acres along the Gulf Coast damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Our strategy and business model were triggered by a natural disaster—one that only a comprehensive and sustained partnership between the public and private sectors could effectively address.
Our Founders were attending the White House Conference on Conservation when Hurricane Katrina slammed southern states in August 2005. The scale of the storm’s damage and devastation made it clear that no one entity – government, private nor individual—could effectively respond.
Our Founders worked alongside federal and state agencies, private, philanthropic, and community organizations to initiate landscape scale forest restoration, along the Gulf Coast. When the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred, Restore the Earth and its partners were the first to employ restoration on oil-soiled wetlands.
Visit: https://restoretheearth.org
Restore the Earth Foundation
The Natural Resources Conservation Service has a proud history of supporting America’s farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners. For more than 80 years, we have helped people make investments in their operations and local communities to keep working lands working, boost rural economies, increase the competitiveness of American agriculture, and improve the quality of our air, water, soil, and habitat. As the USDA’s primary private lands conservation agency, we generate, manage, and share the data, technology, and standards that enable partners and policymakers to make decisions informed by objective, reliable science.
And through one-on-one, personalized advice, we work voluntarily with producers and communities to find the best solutions to meet their unique conservation and business goals. By doing so, we help address climate change and ensure the long-term sustainability of American agriculture. We’re also focused on the American farmer, especially those underserved by our programs as well as those trying to break into new markets, like organics.
Visit: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/conservation-basics/conservation-by-state/louisiana