The Department of Defense announced April 21, that Eglin Air Force Base was named winner of the 2014 Secretary of Defense Environmental Award for Natural Resources Conservation.
The Natural Resources Team at Eglin AFB won the Natural Resources Conservation, Individual/Team award for offered long-range solutions that ensured regulatory compliance while maximizing the use of land and water ranges to maintain mission readiness.
The Eglin Natural Resources Team consists of 32 Biologists, Foresters, Forestry Technicians, Fire Management Specialists and Fire Ecologists. They are responsible for managing a remarkable assemblage of biodiversity of distinct natural community types, the largest forested military reservation, and over 120,000 square miles of water ranges while enabling essential DoD missions.
- Among their many accomplishments, Eglin’s Natural Resources Team:
Developed ground breaking, one of a kind programmatic consultation, resulted in Eglin being granted a “blanket take” for endangered Red-Cockaded woodpeckers based on the size of their population on the base.
- Hosted an Interagency Prescribed Fire Combustion and Atmospheric Dynamics Research Experiment, a set of unprecedented prescribed fire experiments in which more than 100 renowned fire scientists and support staff used Eglin’s forest to fully instrument and measure fires in a controlled environment.
- Restored 12,200 acres of longleaf pine habitat through logging operations by removing 150,000 tons of invasive sand pine.
- Teamed with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to create a Black Bear Management Plan and the first Black Bear Management Unit (BMU) in the state.
Eglin’s Natural Resources Team Decision Support System adopted by 19 other Air Force installations and will soon be implemented by the Air Force Wildland Fire Center.