Resilient Earth Alliance LLC (REA) is a multidisciplinary environmental consultancy founded, owned, and managed by John DeLuca, ecologist and conservation professional of 20+ years. REA specializes in the intersection of field ecology, environmental planning, and regulatory compliance. Based in western North Carolina, REA bridges the gap between complex ecological data and positive outcomes for people, property, streams, floodplains, wetlands, savannas, and other special places by working with federal and state natural resource agencies, counties, municipalities, non-profit conservation organizations, restoration firms, and other stakeholders.

REA provides expert interdisciplinary team leadership, helping partners navigate the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Endangered Species Act (ESA), Clean Water Act (CWA), and other environmental laws, regulations, and policies. REA manages the full lifecycle of projects from initial planning to on-the-ground implementation. With decades of experience in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem restoration, REA brings a collaborative, innovative perspective and more than twenty years of conservation experience to high-level planning, policy development, site-specific project design, and ecosystem restoration.

Capabilities

Manage the full lifecycle restoration and resilience projects, including:

• Collaboration: Coordinate and/or facilitate teams, meetings, schedules, and budgets.

• Development: Design restoration projects and author associated grant proposals.

• Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Develop and manage ArcGIS Pro geodatabases, Web Maps, Field Maps forms, Survey123s forms, Story Maps, and other products of ArcGIS Pro.

• Assess specific areas (ranging from 5-5,000 acres) and collaboratively design actionable conceptual plans for projects that:

  • • Protect people, property, and other socioeconomic and cultural values.

    • Restore resilient streams, floodplains, wetlands, and other special ecosystems.

• Inventory and monitor threatened, endangered, and at-risk fish, wildlife, plants, and ecosystems with a variety of methods and tools (e.g., point counts, line transects, area searches, snorkel surveys, live-trapping, hair snares, mist nets, sweep nets, eDNA, Autonomous Recording Units).

• Inventory and monitor non-native invasive species.

• Support, coordinate, and manage implementation crews. Examples:

  • • Design and installation of beaver dam analogs, post-assisted log structures, and other low-tech, process-based restoration and nature-based solutions.

    • Revegetation (e.g., seeding, staking, planting).

Write, review, edit, and obtain permits to achieve conformance with:

• National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), including:

• Interdisciplinary team leader services.

• Specialist’s reports, decision documents, and all other components of environmental impact statements, environmental assessments, and categorical exclusions.

• Watershed policy requirements, including:

  • • Permitting preparation for Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 401/404 compliance.

~ Authoring EPA Nine-Element Watershed Action Plans.

~ Authoring USFS Watershed Restoration Action Plans.

• Landscape-scale planning laws, regulations, and policies, including:

~ Land and Resource Management Plans (e.g., Forest Plans).

~ Integrated Natural Resource Management Plans.

~ State Park Management Plans.

•  Species-level planning requirements, including:

~ State-level Species Conservation Plans (e.g., for NCWRC).

~  Recovery Plans (for USFWS).

~  Special Status Species Assessments (for USFS, BLM).

Assist with response to – and recovery from – large incidents (e.g., Hurricane Helene, large wildfires):

• As a resource advisor (READ/REAF) under the National Incident Command System.

• 15+ years of experience in wildland fire management, including as a fireline resource advisor on large wildfires (e.g., Great Lakes, Black Bear).

Example Projects

• Watershed Planning (2025-current): Authored EPA-compliant Nine-Element Watershed Action Plans. Conducted site assessments, collected field data (e.g., point, line, and polygon features for GIS; aerial photo-monitoring points; plant species lists), and wrote and created maps and plans for site-specific stream, floodplain, and wetland restoration projects. Met with landowners to understand and incorporate their needs and desires. Stakeholders include: Town of Boone, Chestnut Hills community association (Town of Gerton), City of Hendersonville, Buncombe County, Henderson County, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Conserving Carolina, Mills River Partnership, and Veterans Healing Farm (subcontracting for Jennings Environmental PLLC).

• Infrastructure Resilience (2025): Mapped, assessed conditions, and described potential management actions for resilience of water intake pipelines on public lands (subcontracting for Jennings Environmental PLLC).

• Federal Compliance (2025): Ensured compliance with ESA and NEPA standards for complex, landscape-level projects. Authored and edited Biological Assessments and Biological Evaluations for landscape-scale prescribed fire, non-native invasive species management, and spruce-fir restoration (subcontracting for Copperhead Consulting).

• Wildlife Conservation (2025-current): Authoring Species Conservation Plans for state-endangered species and coordinating, facilitating, and incorporating input from subject matter experts and stakeholders from federal, state, research, and non-profit sectors (under direct contract with the NC Wildlife Resources Commission).

• Nature-focused Journalism and Public Outreach (2026-current): Authoring monthly column about nature and natural resource stewardship for a newspaper with over 650 distribution locations throughout eight counties of western North Carolina and approximately 60,000 readers (under direct contract with Mountain Xpress).

Founded, owned, and managed by John DeLuca, ecologist and conservation professional of 20+ years

https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnconservation/