Peter Stangel

Senior Vice President, U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities
c/o Savannah River Ecology Laboratory
P O Drawer E, Aiken, SC 29802
(404)-915-2763
(803) 725-8158
Peter(at)usendowment.org

The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (Endowment) is a not-for-profit corporation established September 21, 2006, at the request of the governments of the United States and Canada in accordance with the terms of the Softwood Lumber Agreement (SLA) between the two countries. It has been endowed with $200 million under the terms of the SLA.

The Endowment has been chartered with two purposes:

1. educational and charitable causes in timber-reliant communities; and
2. educational and public-interest projects addressing forest management issues that affect timber-reliant communities, or the sustainability of forests as sources of building materials, wildlife habitat, bio-energy, recreation, and other values.

The Endowment’s vision is that America’s forests are sustainably managed to meet broad societal objectives such as marketable products, clean waters, wildlife habitats, and other ecological services, while ensuring healthy and vibrant forest-reliant communities.

Our mission is to work collaboratively with partners in the public and private sectors to advance systemic, transformative and sustainable change for the health and vitality of the nation’s working forests and forest-reliant communities.

Peter’s responsibilities at the Endowment include overseeing the:

• National Conservation Easement Database, the first comprehensive database of private easements in the U.S;
• Partnership for Southern Forestland Conservation, a coalition of public agencies and private organizations that seek to protect large blocks of working forest in the south; and the
• Healthy Watersheds through Healthy Forests Initiative, which seeks to fully develop the potential of water as a forest ecosystem service market, as a strategy to help conserve forested watersheds.

Peter joined the Endowment in April of 2010 after a 20 year career with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. He was a graduate student at SREL in the 1980’s where he worked with Mike Smith on the conservation genetics of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers and other threatened species.