Prairie View A&M to Host 4th Annual Sustainable Forestry Event

Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) and the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB) are hosting the fourth annual Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention (SFLR) Joint Regional Conference from August 29-30, 2024, in person on the campus of Prairie View A & M University.

Themed “Save and Sustain Our Forest Land,” the conference will gather forestry and
land management experts to offer critical insight into retaining land within family
generations and growing generational wealth. The SFLR Program assists African
American forest landowners with entry into forest management and addressing
barriers to land retention.

Several notable conference speakers are: Dr. Tomikia P. LeGrande, Prairie View A & M
University President; Ronald Reynolds, Texas State Representative; Bishop James
Dixon, NAACP Houston Branch President; Dr. Dewayne Goldmon, Senior Advisor for
Racial Equity to the Secretary of Education; Dr. Karama Neal, USDA Rural Business-
Cooperative Service Administrator; Bethany Wilkinson, Director SFLR Network; and
other notable speakers from the USDA, Texas, and Arkansas.

Guests can also expect to hear speakers discuss navigating matters related to heirs’
property, planning forest operations, managing timber to help the climate, land use,
and much more. There are over five million acres of forestry in East Texas--the most
abundant is pine, with over a million acres of oak-pine timberland, followed by oakhickory as the second most abundant.

This conference is free, and all are welcome to attend. To register for the conference,
visit PVAMU.EDU/SFLR.

For more information, contact PVAMU Program Manager and SFLR Joint Regional Conference Co-Chair, Dr. Clarence Bunch, at clbunch@pvamu.edu, (936) 261-5117, or UAPB KIITF Coordinator and SFLR Conference Co-Chair, Ms. Kandi Williams, at williamska@uapb.edu, (870) 571-9428.