Rainforest Alliance

This project is designed to restore native bottomland hardwood forests in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley. An area once covered in dense forests, the Valley now supports less than 20 percent of its original forest. Historical conversion from forest to corn, sugarcane, and cotton cultivation greatly reduced the presence of bottomland hardwoods. The remaining forest areas are highly fragmented. This afforestation project will restore bottomland hardwood forest within the boundaries of the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge and create more viable habitat for over 400 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish that call the refuge home, including the critically endangered Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.