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Katrina Reforestation Outreach Program


In cases where natural regeneration has already begun, the restoration plan may only include salvage and debris removal. Photo by Wildlife Mississippi - James L. Cummins
In the 2005 issue of Wildlife Mississippi, we reported that Hurricane Katrina caused the largest single devastation of forests in our nation's history, 5 million acres, and most of it on private lands. This represents 19 billion board feet of timber with a value of $5 billion. This is enough timber to build 800,000 homes and make 25 million tons of paper and paperboard. For the most part, these damages did not occur to large timber corporations as some like to infer. They occurred mostly to small landowners with an average of 100 acres or less. With so much devastation, private landowners affected by the destruction are now faced with the daunting task of restoring their forests.

In an effort to provide assistance and services to these landowners, Wildlife Mississippi and Resources First Foundation (RFF) recently launched the Katrina Reforestation Outreach Program. At the center of this program is a website, www.katrinareforestation.org that is devoted to reforestation efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Through the website, private landowners have at their disposal the necessary tools and information they need to restore their forests. The site contains a comprehensive database of federal and state financial assistance programs for eligible counties in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida; a database of consulting foresters organized by the affected counties; a database of reforestation suppliers and nurseries; as well as a replanting planner tool to help lead the landowner through a characterization of their site and move through the steps of reforestation. All of this information is available to landowners by simply clicking on their county.

One of the first steps that a landowner will take upon entering the site is to determine if he or she is eligible for one of the disaster assistance programs. To be eligible, a landowner must meet two important criteria: first, the landowner's property must be located in one of the 261 counties that sustained loss directly related to one of the five 2005 hurricanes (Dennis, Katrina, Ophelia, Rita or Wilma); secondly, the landowner must have experienced at least a 35 percent loss to merchantable timber on private non-industrial forestland.

To determine if their county is eligible, landowners will simply click on their state to see which counties within their state are eligible. If their county does qualify, landowners can then click the county to find local resources to assist them with the different disaster assistance programs in that county as well as find other local resources and points of contact.


Randy Browning, a field biologist with Wildlife Mississippi and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, discusses restoring this devastated stand of loblolly pine to longleaf pine with landowner Judd Brooke and forester Joe Pettigrew.
Photo by Wildlife Mississippi - James L. Cummins

There is a reforestation planner on the site that will help landowners organize their thoughts, understand the sequence of decisions and provide access to the resources they need. Eligible landowners can create a printable plan on the website by answering some simple questions to characterize their objective and by entering the zip code if the forested parcel. The planner is organized by the common sequence of events and allows landowners to select registered foresters and tree suppliers from lists and will automatically load the contact information on the plan for the selected provider. The plan is formatted for printing, so when the landowner has made their selections, it can be printed out and taken with them. There is a section of the site that allows landowners to identify their forested parcel, map the soil types and determine the appropriate species of tree suitable to the physical conditions of their property.

In partnership with the U.S.D.A. Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), landowners can use the NRCS Web Soil Survey (WSS) to make detailed maps of their property using up-to-date aerial photography and generate reports about their parcel with information on soils, species of trees and suitability of logging activities on the land. The planner has links to the WSS and detailed instructions on how to locate their property, draw the boundaries, print property maps and generate the reports they need to include with their plan.

The plan has a comprehensive list of federal and state assistance programs listed with brief descriptions included. Complete program descriptions, eligibility and sign-up information is just a click away. The full program descriptions will include email addresses, phone numbers and links to locate the agency contact information that landowners need to pursue and sign-up for funding from the programs. Landowners can print out program information to include with their re-forestation plan.

The site was developed by RFF and Wildlife Mississippi and will be a very important tool for local communities. It can help turn the devastation caused by the hurricanes into an opportunity to create healthy, ecologically rich forests. Partnering with Wildlife Mississippi and RFF on the site is Tara Wildlife, the Longleaf Alliance and the U.S.D.A. NRCS.

Reaching out to Landowners
The Katrina Reforestation Outreach Program is an extension of the Private Landowner Network (PLN), another project of the RFF. Their website is www.privatelandownernetwork.org. The RFF was founded by Amos Eno in 2000. The PLN, of which Wildlife Mississippi is a partner, is a national repository of conservation tools and resources designed for private landowners and the symbiotic businesses they support. With over 70 percent of the Nation's lands in private ownership, the future market of land conservation and biodiversity protection will be driven increasingly by individual landowners making decisions as stewards of the land.

The tools and information resources on the PLN provide a simple and effective means for Mississippi landowners to connect with qualified, often local, professionals to navigate the complex ins and outs of real estate transactions, tax and estate planning and regional land conservation activities. The PLN enables landowners to access local land trusts such as the Mississippi Land Trust (www.misslandtrust.org), non-profit conservation organizations such as Wildlife Mississippi (www.wildlifemiss.org) and the bewildering array of federal and state financial and technical assistance programs and their options.

While providing conservation resources to landowners is of utmost importance, the mission of the PLN is twofold. The PLN offers professionals and service providers, for the private-landowner market, unlimited space for description of services, images, links to articles and any other appropriate web-based content available, thereby driving business to these service providers.