The National Audubon Society recently received a $2 million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service to support the expansion of the Bird-Friendly Maple program. The investment is part of $145 million in Inflation Reduction Act funding to connect landowners to emerging climate markets. Audubon’s Bird-Friendly Maple program is a market-based approach that incentivizes maple producers to manage their sugarbushes (forests that are used to produce maple syrup) in ways that provide forest bird habitat and increase forest sustanability through unique product labeling and marketing opportunities. Biologically and structurally diverse sugarbushes offer great places for birds to forage, find cover, and raise their young. They are also likely to have better long-term sap production, fewer forest health problems, and are better able to adapt to the stresses of climate change.   

Pennsylvania is the 6th largest maple-producing state in the country. This grant enables Audubon’s Forest Program in the Mid-Atlantic to roll out Bird-friendly Maple for maple producers in our region to provide technical and habitat management expertise. Through these market-based incentives, Audubon can help maple syrup producers not only provide important habitat for declining forest birds but also provide the public with bird-friendly syrup! You can read more about the grant and the maple program here.