Growing our Nursery Capacity to Meet the Moment
New Research Effort Will Examine Investment Needs of Tree Nurseries
The impacts of climate change are accelerating reforestation needs across the United States. Increasingly intense and destructive wildfires combined with enduring drought and infestations have dramatically diminished forest resilience to natural disturbances and have released previously sequestered carbon. At the same time, cities and urban areas are seeking to substantially increase tree planting efforts to combat the urban heat island effect and promote clean air and health.
To meet our reforestation goals and address the 146 million acres of reforestable land, the entire “pipeline” for tree planting will need to be scaled up, starting with tree seed orchards and nurseries. Since the 1980s, seedling production has been in decline driven in part by budget cuts, consolidation, and liquidation of tree nurseries. The U.S. currently produces an estimated 1.3 billion seedlings per year, but will require 5.1 billion seedlings per year, or approximately 4x our current annual production, to deliver half of our total planting potential by 2030 (see chart).
When surveyed on the challenges of increasing production, nursery operators cite financing and markets as two of the three top obstacles. To deepen our understanding of these financing barriers, New Leaf Climate will produce a first-of-its-kind assessment of nursery investment capacity. This research, supported by and in partnership with the US Endowment for Forestry and Communities, will explore in more detail the financing challenges of different types of nurseries (across public, private and industrial), and assess investment-specific interventions to unlock nascent capacity.
Based on findings, the project will seek to launch a national Nursery Financing Facility, leveraging flexible capital across philanthropic, government, and private investment to strengthen and expand the supply of seedlings for reforestation projects.
For more information and to follow or support this work, please email info@newleafclimate.com.