The Southern Appalachians are home to 49 of the fifty highest peaks in the eastern United States. These montane sky islands support habitats and species unique to the Southern Appalachians, including high-elevation boreal type forests of endemic Fraser fir as well as Red Spruce at its southernmost extent on the continent. These systems are considered the 2nd most endangered forested ecosystems in the United States. In the wake industrial logging and associated stand-replacing wildfires in the early 20 th century, the extent of these conifer forests was greatly reduced by up to 60%, and soil conditions were altered thereby hindering natural regeneration. In subsequent years, red spruce and Fraser fir was further degraded by human-caused atmospheric deposition, southern pine beetle and an introduced invasive insect, the balsam woolly adelgid (Adelges picea). One hundred years after the era of destructive logging, these forests have not recovered. The recently proposed America the Beautiful project represents a multi-agency partnership aimed at restoring red spruce and Fraser fir in North Carolina. This grant would provide the Southern Appalachian Spruce Restoration Initiative (SASRI; est. 2012) the ability to elevate, organize, and direct spruce restoration work across three states (Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee) on federal, state, tribal and private lands to a level heretofore unseen.