A research team at the University of Arkansas at Monticello is working on a $3.7 million grant project from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to restore the bottomland hardwood forests in Arkansas. The project is expected to plant new oak trees on 600 acres of unused or fallow farmland in the Ouachita River Valley, Red River Valley and Bayou Meto Watershed. Dr. Michael Blazier, dean of the College of Forestry, Agriculture, and Natural Resources, spoke with Ozarks at Large's Daniel Caruth about the project.
The following is an edited version of that conversation.
Daniel Caruth: I think a lot of people, when they think of climate solutions, especially here in Arkansas, maybe look at agriculture and farming practices like regenerative farming or something like that. Maybe they don't think a lot about forestry and this type of a project as a solution. Why is that? And how can people sort of shift their focus to that?
Micahel Blazier: I guess the crux of the question is how is planting forest climate-smart agriculture? There are lands out there that used to be farmed, but since technology's kind of advanced, maybe they don't have the right topography at that site anymore. Maybe the family doesn't have the resources to keep up with the adoption of the latest farming technology. Or maybe there's been fragmentation of the ownership through inheritance patterns, and it's just land that's just out there.
It was agriculture land at one time, and now it's just turning into just scrub over time. If we were to just walk away from it for a few thousand years or whatever, we'd see robust native forests there. But what we would like to do would be to go ahead and restore the forest that would have been there naturally to get it back into the native forest so that our society can benefit from it at a faster pace.
How that relates to agriculture - it's old agriculture land, and we are doing what we call afforestation. It's like we're putting forests where there hasn't been one for generations again. In the process of doing that, the climate component of that is those trees are going to absorb carbon dioxide, and they turn it into wood...it's holding it below ground and really large root systems over time. That's a valuable habitat for a lot of game and non-game wildlife. They also do a lot of control on flooding. We don't think about it, but trees wick a considerable amount of water up. Just a medium-sized pine tree on a summer day goes on about 20 gallons of water in a day. So, that actually ameliorates the flashiness of flooding. When you've got trees that are out there that kind of act as a stabilization on the water table.
DC: And how has it been to get landowners or farmers, especially people who maybe their family has farmed for generations or something, to participate in this project? Are they hesitant to it? How they could benefit from this more than keeping a farm in production, even if it's not doing well?
MB: Well, we've had pretty good adoption on this, and the reason for that is the populations we're targeting. We're not looking for the landowners that have vast acreages. The land sizes that are being targeted are 20 to 100 acres.
And we provide a lot of benefits to them for their roles in this project. What the project team is asking for is land access for a seven-year period. And at the end of the project, for which the grant covers 100% of the expenses for the landowner's benefit to get the trees planted and survive well.
And so that by the end of the project, they have free and clear what's on its way to becoming a robust forest. And they also benefit from the regular interactions with the project team that gives them some expert guidance on what needs to be done for their land over the long period.
DC: And so at the end of this, I'm wondering, you know, what do you and the team hope to kind of see at the end of this? What's the kind of goal? What do you hope the benefits you'll be able to see maybe in the next 10 or so years once this project maybe is complete or on its way to being complete?
MB: We actually, in addition to planting the landowner sites, there's two sites that are being planted. One on the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Research Station near Colt, the Pine Tree Research Station. And that will be a site where they're able to do some more experimental type of planting, some more advanced kind of planting practices. And the project team is taking those risks so landowners don't have to.
And hopefully those practices will bear out and show success there to help landowners statewide and through the region knowing how to optimize how well they can establish bottomland hardwood forests in a variety of different site conditions.
DC: For people who may be throughout the state, maybe they live in the northern part of the state or up here near Fayetteville. What would you say to them is like the importance of forestry to the state of Arkansas and projects like this?
MB: Forestry is a large contributor to the state economy. As a whole, it provides about $6 billion in revenue per year. Then don't forget that this is, you know, it's the natural state and this is a destination for folks to come recreate through hiking, through canoeing, and hunting. And healthy forests are integral to all of that. And when you count that kind of economic input, that now brings the total up to about $10 billion per year.
So it's not just economic contribution our forests provide. It's also quality of life. And it's forests at the heart of that.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. The authoritative record of KUAF programming is the audio record.
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