RiverCARE

(CARE: Conservation of Agriculture, Resources, and the Environment)

RiverCARE is a conservation initiative targeted at protecting and conserving important wetlands throughout the flood plain of the lower Mississippi River.

Once a great wilderness of hardwood forests and swamps, the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV) has been changed drastically by drainage and agriculture.

By restoring hydrology, developing seasonal wetlands on agricultural lands, enhancing moist soil areas and forested wetlands, and reforesting bottomland hardwoods, waterfowl habitat will be improved and water quality, erosion prevention, and enhanced biological diversity will result.

The area under RiverCARE encompasses approximately 24 million acres of wetland habitat. River CARE is projected to restore 150,000 acres of that habitat by the year 2000.

Only 20% of the LMAV's original network of swamps, bayous, and bottomland hardwood forests remains, mostly in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Natural flooding, which once regularly inundated the river's flood plain and provided valuable wetland habitat, now occurs less often, covers fewer acres, and is of shorter duration due to years of flood control and drainage.

During years with normal to less than normal rainfall, there is currently insufficient habitat- managed or natural, public or private to meet the wintering needs of large waterfowl populations. Wintering habitat in the LMAV must be increased to help meet the needs of and foster the expansion of mid-continent waterfowl populations.

Primary species that benefit:

mallards
northern pintails
mottled ducks
wood ducks
ring-necked ducks
black ducks
American widgeons
gadwalls
blue-winged teal
green-winged teal
northern shovelers
Canada Geese
Snow Geese
White-fronted geese
various shorebirds
various wading birds
raptors
neotropical migrant songbirds

Threatened or endangered species:

bald eagle
interior least tern
Louisiana black bear
peregrine falcon
wood stork
pondberry  

Project and Partnership Examples:

Nearly 75% of the wetland habitat in the important LMAV is privately owned. At the end of 1998, more than 1,500 private landowners were participating as active partners with DU to provide wildlife habitat in the area encompassed by RiverCARE. 316 landowners enhanced or restored wetland habitat on 50,899 acres in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, and Tennessee just in 1998.