Restorative Jobs and Opportunity in Natural Infrastructure (REJOIN): Best Practices and Local Experiences to Guide and Ground a New Civilian Climate Corps

Establishing a modern Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) can mobilize a national initiative to use natural infrastructure to address climate change. A large-scale CCC program is vital for the Appalachian region and the country. Altogether, the U.S economy has lost 5.7 million jobs in the pandemic, including over 755,000 in the Ohio Valley of Appalachia. By building on the successful legacy of the New Deal CCC and other corps programs, a new CCC could employ thousands of out-of-work people—including formally incarcerated citizens, young adults, and unemployed and underemployed workers—in carbon farming jobs planting trees to reforest the region and restore wetlands, growing small farms using regenerative agricultural practices, and other innovative economic development areas.