ROME, Ga.—Pirelli North America and Berry College will collaborate on a major sustainability project to restore the rare longleaf pine habitat in and around Pirelli's factory in Rome, which sits just to the northwest of Atlanta.
The Longleaf Pine Project initially began as a partnership between Berry College and The Nature Conservancy in Georgia, since a mountain where the longleaf pine exists is on the Berry College campus.
"Longleaf pine forests once occupied over 92 million acres throughout the southeastern U.S. and now cover only about two percent of the original range," Pirelli said in a Jan. 17 press release. "Mountain longleaf pine forests are particularly rare, originally occupying mountain slopes in northwest Georgia and northeast Alabama."
Using controlled burns, the project initially will look to restore about 300 acres of land, with another 100 acres to be restored as fertile land after that.