Great Rivers Partnership - LMR Lower Yazoo Basin

Lower Yazoo Basin

The Yazoo River basin covers about 13,355 square miles of northwestern Mississippi and is the state’s largest drainage basin. In the lower part of the basin, from about 30 miles northwest of Jackson to the Yazoo’s confluence with the Mississippi River near Vicksburg, the Conservancy’s Lower Mississippi River Program has designated approximately 1.13 million acres as a priority conservation site.

Within the site lies one of few remaining large-remnant bottomland hardwood forests along the lower Mississippi. It provides suitable habitat for many species, such as black bear and some songbirds, that require for their survival sizable tracts of unfragmented woods. Among many plant species of concern occurring within the site is the pondberry, listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Several animals of concern also have been recorded in the area, including pallid sturgeons and interior least terns, both species listed as endangered, as well as rock pocketbook mussels and alligator snapping turtles.

Strategies and Progress

Dredging and bank clearing along the Sunflower River, a major Yazoo tributary, represents an environmental stress to many of the site’s aquatic species, as does alteration of the area’s natural water patterns by flood-control projects. In some areas, fragmentation of the site’s forest wetlands and forestry practices that have affected the structure and composition of existing forests have rendered wild habitat less attractive, especially for Neotropical songbirds seeking to nest.

To promote conservation of the lower Yazoo basin, the Conservancy is seeking to acquire new lands to expand the Delta National Forest, which now includes more than 60,000 acres of bottomland hardwoods and forested wetlands. Other Conservancy strategies include completion of a science-based conservation plan for the site; participation in the Lower Delta Partnership, an organization whose other partners include local, state and federal agencies, other non-profit organizations and private corporations; promoting through programs containing incentives for landowners the reforestation of marginal farmlands adjacent to critical natural areas; and working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to replicate aspects of the basin’s natural water patterns.

What's to Gain?

In addition to its endangered and rare plants and animals, the lower Yazoo basin shelters approximately 16 plant communities representative of the Mississippi River’s alluvial plain. The Delta National Forest is the only national forest in the U.S. preserving a bottomland ecosystem of significant size.

Lower Yazoo River Basin

The lower Mississippi River is home to more than 20 distinct plant communties that are comprised of dozens of species of trees, including live oaks (pictured above in the Yazoo National Wildlife Refuge). © Byron Jorjorian

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Lower Yazoo River

The Nature Conservancy and its partners work at sites along the entire length of the Mississippi River, from its headwaters in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.