Arkansas Group Gains USDA Bottomlands Grant

at the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA), met with faculty from the University of Arkansas at Monticello (UAM) and the Arkansas Forest Resources Center (AFRC) of the University of Arkansas System Div. of Agriculture housed at UAM to award them a grant for $3.7 million. The meeting took place at Five Oaks Ag Research and Education Center in Humphrey, Ark., where part of the work for the project will be conducted.

The grant provides funding for USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities projects, which are aimed at supporting sustainability in agriculture. AFRC at UAM is the lead on the project and will partner with the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB) and Texas A&M University (TAMU), as well as with recruited landowners. Dr. Nana Tian, assistant professor of natural resources economics and policy at UAM, developed the proposal for the grant and will serve as the project director.

The project will support small and underserved landowners in the river-influenced forest regions of Arkansas to develop and harness climate-smart commodities from restoration of the region’s hardwood forests. Bottomland hardwood forests have shown high potential for producing climate-smart commodities including carbon sequestration and storage, wood products, wildlife and other ecosystem services. Despite their importance, 70% of bottomland hardwood forest areas have been lost in the past 100 years.

The project aims to plant 500 to 600 acres of oak forests 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. The project will also quantify and demonstrate the ecological and economic benefits of bottomland hardwood forest restoration on working lands and help landowners manage the plantations and market climate-smart commodities.

Timber Companies Will Combat CWD

Seven timber companies and four conservation organizations are joining together to fight the spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD) among deer, elk and other species of the deer family (known as “cervids”). The new CWD coalition will promote practices that help discover, manage, and mitigate the negative impacts of CWD. The Coalition includes the Forest Investment Associates, Molpus Woodlands Group, PotlatchDeltic, Rayonier, Resource Management Service, The Westervelt Company, Weyerhaeuser, Alabama Wildlife Federation, Boone and Crockett Club, Georgia Wildlife Federation and National Deer Association. This footprint spans to well over 20 million acres across the nation.

“We are pleased to join with so many other private landowners and other stakeholders in addressing this critical problem,” comments Brian Luoma, The Westervelt Company President and CEO. “Fed- eral and state agencies, the U.S. Congress, state legislatures, researchers and sportsmen conservationists are all doing their part in educating the public about this critical issue. We are fully supportive of all efforts to prevent further spread and are grateful to everyone who is participating in the coalition, including our own employees, who have taken the lead in combating CWD.”

The group has developed a list of voluntary best management practices to help monitor, manage and prevent the spread of CWD. The coalition will also support communication, research, policy and public health.

Chronic wasting disease is transmitted animal-to-animal and from contact with infectious material. The disease is contagious and can be transmitted freely within and among cervid populations. No treatments or vaccines are currently available, and CWD is 100% fatal to cervids.