Great Rivers Partnership - LMR Pine City Natural Area

Pine City Natural Area

At the heart of approximately 18,000 acres that have been designated a priority site for The Nature Conservancy’s Lower Mississippi River Program lies the 637.8-acre Pine City Natural Area, owned by the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission. Encompassed within the site are a rare headwater swamp, home to a bottomland hardwood forest that contains the endangered pondberry plant, and a loblolly pine forest with trees that have become genetically distinct from all other such pines in the U.S. because of their isolation. Sandy soils and a higher elevation, both uncommon within the Mississippi’s alluvial plain, enabled the only native pines in the entire plain to take root at Pine City. In turn, these isolated loblolly pines attracted animals, like the red-cockaded woodpecker, not typically found in the region.

The red-cockaded woodpeckers, a species also listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as endangered, nest in live pine trees more than 60 years old. They have declined because of the reduction of pines sufficiently old for nesting and because fire suppression has allowed hardwood, mid-story vegetation to encroach into open, park-like forests in which they prefer to nest.

Strategies and Progress

Land-use changes within the Pine City site have altered and fragmented its natural habitat. Surface water flows, for example, now carry increased levels of sediments, nutrients and chemicals into the site’s waterways. The suppression of natural fire regimes has changed the site’s species composition and adversely affected habitat for the red-cockaded woodpecker.

The Conservancy is engaged in efforts to increase public awareness of such environmental stresses on the site and to develop partnerships and collaborative solutions for addressing them. Strategies include the purchase of priority tracts to reduce habitat fragmentation, the restoration of the native pine community and of natural surface flow and fire regimes, and working with nearby landowners to foster compatible land management and use.

What's to Gain?

The Pine City Natural Area and surrounding lands are a key location in efforts to preserve the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker and pondberry. Conservation of the site’s rare headwater swamp and genetically distinct pine forest will preserve habitats that support the biological diversity of the Mississippi River’s alluvial plain.

Red cockaded-woodpeckers, which have been on the endangered list since 1970, find refuge at Pine Cit

Red cockaded-woodpeckers, which have been on the endangered list since 1970, find refuge at Pine City Natural Area © Ark. National Heritage Commission

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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.