BATON ROUGE — The Louisiana Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration will conduct four informational meetings for interested landowners across coastal Louisiana from April 20-29, 2010 to discuss the Coastal Forest Conservation Initiative (CFCI) being funded by the state’s Coastal Impact Assistance Program (CIAP).

All those who own or are charged with managing forested coastal lands are encouraged to attend. The meeting dates and locations are as follows:

• Tuesday, April 20: Slidell. Old Slidell City Council Chambers. 1330 Bayou Lane Building #110

• Thursday, April 22: Houma. Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum. 7910 Park Avenue.

• Tuesday, April 27: Lake Charles. Calcasieu Parish Public Library. 301 West Claude Street

• Thursday, April 29: Lafayette. Clifton Chenier Center. 220 West Willow Street.

All meetings will begin with an open house session with officials from the Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration at 4 p.m. followed by a presentation detailing the program at 6 p.m. and a question and answer period.

The CFCI is a completely voluntary program with a primary objective of acquiring land rights from willing landowners to address demonstrated threats of habitat loss or land-use change and opportunities for restoration or enhanced sustainability of coastal forest tracts that provide significant ecological value and may provide storm damage reduction functions.

Land owners who are interested in participating are being asked to submit an application providing information about the parcel of land they are proposing for inclusion in the program. OCPR will open a 90 day application period beginning May 1, 2010.

More detailed information about the program is available at www.lacpra.org/cfci.