Tensas River Refuge Grows by 2,200 Acres
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The addition of 2,208 acres to Tensaw River NWR, LA, is the first phase of a multi-year expansion that eventually will add 11,000 acres to the refuge, which is home to the threatened Louisiana black bear, among other species.
– Photo: USFWS
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Tensas River NWR, LA, will grow by 2,208 acres thanks to a partnership that is combining the science of carbon sequestering with land conservation to help protect the floodplain of the Lower Mississippi River.
The refuge's 67,000 acres along the upper Tensas River basin protects one of the largest continuous blocks of bottomland hardwood forest left in the Lower Mississippi River Valley.
The addition of 2.208 acres will provide critical habitat for the threatened Louisiana black bear and rare forest-breeding waterfowl, among a host of other species.
The USFWS will purchase the acreage by year's end from the Trust for Public Land, which purchased the property from Chicago Mill and Lumber Co. in February 2004. Entergy Corp. has invested more than $1 million to partially fund the purchase, to reforest the property with native bottomland hardwood trees and to compensate the Service for maintaining the new forest for the next 70 years. Entergy will retain the right to report carbon sequestration credits that result from the reforestation.
The land conservation action is the first phase of a multi-year, $15.7 million initiative that eventually will add approximately 11,000 acres to the Tensas River Refuge and reforest more than 8,600 of those acres.
Carbon sequestration is the long-term storage of carbon in the terrestrial biosphere, underground, or the oceans. Scientists have found that one-acre of reforested bottomland hardwood forest of the Lower Mississippi River floodplain can take up 400 tons of carbon over 70 years.
"As a conservation tool, carbon sequestration gives us the opportunity to address critical issues relating to the atmosphere while at the same time saving and restoring wildlife habitat. Additionally, the public/private partnership accomplishes this at a savings to the American taxpayer," said Don Morrow, Trust for Public Land's project manager.
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