Restoring Bottomland
Hardwood Forests

Restoring bottomland hardwood forests is a viable climate-smart forestry practice. Small and underserved family landowners play a critical role in this restoration effort, but they face more barriers to than other landowners to implement bottomland hardwood restoration practices.

Led by principal investigator Nana Tian, the climate-smart bottomland forest restoration project aims to use the collective expertise of the University of Arkansas at Monticello, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Texas A&M University and the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture to reduce barriers and increase access to being a part of restoring the Southern Bottomland Region.

Overview

There is a compelling need to restore bottomland hardwood forests. Bottomland hardwood forests have shown high potential for producing climate-smart commodities like timber while providing carbon sequestration and storage, wildlife habitat, and other ecosystem services. Small and underserved family landowners play a critical role in implementing this climate smart agricultural/forestry practice, but they face more barriers than other landowners to adoption.

The climate-smart bottomland forest restoration project aims to:

1. Plant 500-600 acres of oak forests on working lands in the agriculturally dominant floodplain of the Red River Valley of southwestern Arkansas, the Ouachita River Valley of southcentral Arkansas, and the Bayou Meto Watershed in eastern Arkansas by recruiting 10 or more small and underserved landowners with a minimum of 5 underserved landowners.
2. Quantify and demonstrate the ecological and economic benefits of hardwood plantations on working lands in terms of timber and carbon.
3. Help these landowners manage the plantations and market climate-smart commodities through market development. Plantations under this project will be established on working lands and will not convert wetlands to forests.

This project represents a partnership among the University of Arkansas at Monticello (UAM) (lead), the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB), Texas A&M University (TAMU), and the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture (UADA), as well as the recruited landowners.

Objective

The objectives of this project are to support the production and marketing of climate-smart commodities by providing voluntary incentives to producers and landowners, including early adopters, to implement climate-smart agricultural production practices, activities, and systems on working lands; measure/quantify, monitor and verify the carbon and greenhouse gas (GHG) benefits associated with those practices; and develop markets and promote the resulting climate-smart commodities.

The climate-smart bottomland forest restoration project is supported by a $3.71 million grant from the United States Department of Agriculture, through the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program.