Great Rivers Partnership - LMR -- Economics and the Diversity of Life

The Lower Mississippi River Program

Economics and the Diversity of Life

In recent decades, rising public awareness has highlighted the environmental trade-offs necessitated by economic achievements along the Lower Mississippi. The region’s forested wetlands have been reduced from more than 24 million acres to less than 4.4 million acres. The Carolina parakeet, the cougar and the red wolf have vanished from the region. Populations of the American black bear are perilously low.

Moreover, history has revealed that the alluvial plain’s long-term economic welfare and ecological health are inextricably bound. With woodlands reduced, forestry is no longer a powerhouse of the regional economy. Declining groundwater resources are clouding the future of rice production in some areas. Commercial fishing has suffered as fish populations have declined.

Increasing knowledge of the value of wild habitats and the need to protect natural systems to ensure adequate supplies of freshwater is prompting citizens, policy makers and conservationists to seek a balance between the needs of human beings and those of the LMR environment. An initial step in this effort has been the identification of four pervasive threats to the alluvial plain’s historically rich diversity of life. They are:

Altered water flows. Changes to streams made for navigation and flood protection have limited and prevented seasonal floods that supplied freshwater to critical floodplain habitats
Fragmented habitat. The region’s remaining forests are fragmented into small, separate tracts, making them less suitable as habitat for many species. Migrating birds, for example, benefit from uninterrupted corridors of wetland forest
Altered habitat. In some areas, demand for agricultural goods has led to the conversion of marginal lands to agriculture, diminishing bottomland hardwood forests. Forestry practices have, in some cases, altered the species composition of woodlands
Reduced water quality. Increased sedimentation and run-off of excess nutrients from some converted agricultural fields has reduced water quality, particularly in streams and lakes where adjacent wetlands no longer are present to filter the freshwater flows that renew them

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Water lotus pads leaves
© Byron Jorjorian

Working with numerous governmental and private-sector partners, the Conservancy is now addressing ecological threats and conservation opportunities in the LMR alluvial plain at 18 priority conservation sites and by developing broader strategies to address region-wide threats.

LMR Program

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