Wildlife Forestry in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley

Written by Nick Biemiller

The Guild is proud to announce that this fall we will be launching a project in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV) of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas to engage landowners in wildlife-focused forestry. Our project will manage and enhance natural stands of bottomland hardwoods in the LMAV for the benefit of wildlife and freshwater systems. We will partner with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and The Nature Conservancy to exemplify wildlife forestry concepts. By supporting demonstration sites on Louisiana state lands, engaging landowners and resource professionals through education & outreach events, and connecting landowners to technical services, we will promote sustainable forest management in the LMAV that maintains or enhances the ecological integrity of bottomland hardwood forests. We will also host a Bottomland Hardwoods Learning Exchange in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in fall 2019, as a follow-up to our 2018 event in Brunswick, Georgia.

This project builds off the Guild’s ongoing efforts to “move-the-needle” on the standard for forest management in bottomland hardwood forests across the South. It complements our previous reports, “Ecological Forestry Practices for Bottomland Hardwood Forests of the Southeastern U.S.” and “Forest Biomass Retention and Harvesting Guidelines for the Southeast,” and aligns with our involvement on the steering committee of the Wetland Forest Initiative.

This project is possible thanks to the generous support of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Merck Family Fund. For more information on the project and award, please read the recent press release .

In more Southeast news, check out the note in the July 2019 issue of ATL, announcing our award of another NFWF grant we are proud to accept and excited to start work from, farther north in the region. Details are coming on those projects soon! Stay tuned…