New podcast discusses Arkansas’ push to restore bottomland hardwood forests

MONTICELLO, Ark. ( KTAL/KMSS ) – A recent podcast by the Arkansas Food, Farms and Forests Podcast discusses projects at the College of Forestry, Agriculture, and Natural Resources that have been made possible by a $3.7 million grant.

The grant was awarded by the United States Department of Agriculture.

Dr. Michael Blazier is the dean of the College of Forestry, Agriculture and Natural Resources at University of Arkansas in Monticello . He is an advisory board chair for the Restoring Bottomland Hardwood Forest Project , which is part of the USDA’s nationwide Climate Smart program .

Blazier said that the five-year project is one of the largest grants ever gained by the unit.

The team is made up of professionals from various fields such as economists, a waterfoul expert, and an agronomist. Texas A&M University and University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff have also partnered for the project.

UAPB is focusing on how to help underserved landowners in Arkansas’ alluvial regions.

In the podcast, there’s a discussion about the Mississippi Alluvial Valley’s history, which covers portions of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Much of the land in those regions was cleared in the early 1900s and around 70% of the region’s hardwood forests were lost.

Without those hardwood forests, water quality has suffered. So has the wildlife.

Since the 1984 Farm bill, money has been provided to some landowners in alluvial areas. They’re encouraged to take land that is difficult to farm and plant it with hardwoods.

But smaller landowners with less money in their bank accounts may find it difficult to connect with cost-share money, especially in minority communities.

What is Climate Smart Agriculture?

Climate Smart Agriculture funding is a national effort that enhances carbon sequestration.

“The project was funded because its climate-smart ag practices are taking idle land that just sort of out there holding the world together, not growing anything all that well because it’s unmanaged, and converting it into its native ecosystem, which is bottomland hardwood trees that are going to grow for, you know, decades and decades,” said Blazier.

Blazier said that the process of putting a forest where there previously was not one is called afforestation .

“And that’s one of the most impactful things we can do to put something out there that’s going to absorb a lot of carbon from the atmosphere and contain it above and below ground, and in the eventual structures that can be made from that woody biomass, for a long time to come.

For more information about this, and other subjects, visit the Arkansas Food, Farms and Forests Podcast .

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KNWA FOX24.