Tellurian Energy Donates $25 Million to National Forest Foundation to Restore Kisatchie National Forest
The Kisatchie National Forest lost nearly 40,000 acres of native trees because of Hurricane Laura.
ABC 31 News Reporter Keisha Swafford has the story on how the National Forest Foundation plans to recover these trees.
The devastation brought by hurricane damage motivated Charif Souki to donate $25 million to the National Forest Foundation.
Executive Chairman of Tellurian Inc. Charif Souki says, “It’s really important to do things like this and you can look around you and see the devastation that the hurricane brought and being able to offset some of it, it makes you feel very good about what we’re doing.”
These funds will help plant 800,000 trees in the Kisatchie National Forest.
National Forest Foundation President & CEO Mary Mitsos says, “It’s an amazing partnership and not just because of the amount of the money over five years but because they are a really great partner in helping us work through challenging issues.”
This partnership brought people together to plant seeds in the ground.
KLAX News Reporter Keisha Swafford says, “Planting trees is a great way to restore the forest and provide clean air and water after the destruction of Hurricane Laura.”
Charif Souki says planting trees is his way of bringing balance back to nature.
“As we are in the hydrocarbon industry and we are building a plant in Louisiana, to build, to export natural gas, we will have an impact on nature. We will be emitting CO2 and we’ve been looking for ways to offset our emissions.”
Planting the seeds is the first step of the restoration process.
Regional Forester for USDA Forest Service Ken Arney says, “And reforestation takes a lot of time and planning, we first have to do the assessments on where we need to plant or where we can adequately regenerate a site with natural reproduction in some way.”
With the donation, the National Forest Foundation can expand their tree nurseries to plant more seedlings.
Mitsos says, “Without building that capacity to get more seedlings, we won’t be able to catch up with the number of trees we need to get in the ground so it’s an essential first step.”
Tellurian Energy announced they will invest another $100 million to support forest reforestation.
