Partnership Goals
- Work with private landowners to implement and enroll 3,000+ acres of land in two phases, in the Lower MAV (Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri) with a focus on the removal of carbon offsets by replanting trees
- Phase I closed in August 2023
- Phase II enrollment is open until March 2024
- Improve air quality, preserve soil health, provide oxygen, benefit the climate, support waterfowl and wildlife and replant native species of hardwood trees
Forests play a critical role in mitigating climate impacts by capturing carbon dioxide and storing carbon with soils and forest biomass. Approximately 50% of the carbon stored in a forest is in the soil, and the rest is stored in the trunk, branches, and roots of the trees.
How It Works
- DU works with private landowners to design reforestation projects
- By enrolling in the voluntary program, landowners will be paid to restore land to its historic forested condition
- DU will compensate the landowner at a rate of $2,200/acre over 5 years ($440/acre/year for 5 years)
- DU will hold a perpetual conservation easement on the restored acres and conduct annual easement compliance monitoring
- The landowner will retain ownership of the land while DU covers all site prep, tree planting and survival monitoring of seedlings
- DU will monitor and conduct adaptive management for the first seven years
- Verified carbon offsets will be released after the first 6 years of the program, and then every 5 years for the 40-year program
- DU and partners will conduct field verification of tree growth and forest health every 5 years for the duration of the program (40 years)
TreePlanting, photo by Ben Hemmings
Program Enrollment FAQs
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Who is eligible?
- Landowners in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley in western TN, southeastern MO, eastern AR, western MS, and eastern LA who wish to restore bottomland hardwood forests and improve the habitat of their property
- Landowners who wish to leave a legacy of forested habitat by protect the land in perpetuity through a conservation easement
- Ideal lands should have at least 75+ acres available in areas such as:
- Lands where bottomland hardwood forests historically occurred
- Fields in current or recent agricultural production
- Pastures managed for haying and recreation
- Croplands with challenging soil
- Flood-prone land IF tree mortality is low
Non-eligible lands include:
- Emergent wetlands are NOT ideal
- Land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, Wetland Reserve Easements, or other government funded programs that paid for tree planting
Prothonotary Warbler, photo by Dominic Sherony
What are the benefits of this program?
Carbon benefits
- Reforestation has the greatest climate mitigation potential in the U.S. relative to other natural climate solutions. Flyway forests will sequester more carbon than traditional silvicultural practices.
- Tree planting is an effective way to sequester and store carbon dioxide. Seedlings of bottomland hardwood trees in the Lower MAV do this at a rate of 6 tons/acre/year by the time the trees are 30 years old.
- 1 acre of restored Flyway Forest is equivalent to taking one car off the road for a year (EPA)
Aerial Wetland View
What are the waterfowl and wildlife benefits
- Bottomland hardwood forests of the MAV reduce floodwaters, filter nutrients, improve water quality and provide and support habitat for ducks, deer, turkeys, black bears, squirrels and neotropical songbirds.
- Songbirds such as the Prothonotary Warbler and Cerulean Warbler will benefit from early successional forest cover as the interior of the forest expands.
- 50% of the native hardwood species planted on a site are oaks, which will aid waterfowl and songbirds in multiple ways.
- Many caterpillars are host-specific insects that are closely associated with oaks, meaning butterflies and moths prefer to lay eggs on their foliage. Songbirds feed their hatchlings large numbers of caterpillars; therefore, forest reforestation supports the food web of numerous species.
- Oaks provide acorns, which are an important food source for ducks, providing natural sources of dietary energy, fats, minerals and proteins.
- Flood-prone oak forests also provide critical breeding habitat for species such as wood ducks and hooded mergansers.
Carbon Offset Guide - click the link to learn more about the incremental steps to take to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG)
For more information about the Flyway Forest program, contact:
Lauren Alleman--Carbon Specialist: lalleman@ducks.org
Josh Green, Real Estate Specialist--MS Alluvial Valley: jgreen@ducks.org