Alabama Governor Kay Ivey awarded $10 million of the state’s Coronavirus Relief Fund for a program to assist Alabama timber owners impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The industry’s impact on Alabama is over $23 billion and 40,000 jobs, across 23 million acres of timberland. The grant program will be administered through the Alabama Forestry Commission and will include grants of up to $10,000 on a first-come, first-serve basis to qualifying timber owners who harvested timber in Alabama during the months of March through July.
“The Alabama Forestry Commission understands that forest landowners in the state have been negatively impacted by the coronavirus. These assistance payments will not make landowners whole, but they will help,” State Forester Rick Oates remarks. “An even more important effect of this program will be that this money will not sit in people’s bank accounts. It will help landowners better care for the forest resources with which they are entrusted, and in doing so, will be reinvested in the economy and be spent several times.”