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The Nature Conservancy in Georgia Georgia Home Contact Places We Protect Field Trips & Events Press Releases Volunteer Ways of Giving Landmarks Publications How We Work |
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Located in the Chattahoochee Fall Line, Fort Benning is home to a wide range of natural communities, including upland pine, bottomland hardwoods, sandy hills, river bluffs, seepage bogs, seasonal herbaceous ponds, and longleaf pine grasslands. The U.S. Army’s primary training installation for infantry, Fort Benning covers more than 180,000 contiguous acres in western Georgia and eastern Alabama. This land provides important habitat for imperiled species like the red-cockaded woodpecker, gopher tortoise, relict trillium, and sweet pitcher plant.
The Conservancy has worked with the Army since 1993 to protect and manage the installation’s natural areas, receiving vital research and conservation opportunities that have guided efforts across the region. These conservation efforts include restoration of the rapidly disappearing longleaf pine ecosystem, which has incidentally benefited from the frequent fires resulting from military training. Prescribed burns are also used to maintain this fire-dependent community.
The Conservancy and the Army are also working together with private landowners around Fort Benning to maintain rural and conservation-friendly land uses. Encroaching incompatible development around the base threatens both the military’s training mission and the unique habitat that exists there. Both military training (noise, dust, aircraft, wildfire), and habitat management (smoke from prescribed fire) can conflict with increasing human population density. Incompatible development also fragments and further isolates imperiled habitats.
Learn more about our work on Fort Benning.
Nature picture credits (left to right): Longleaf pine forest © Mark Godfrey; TNC's Fort Benning Project Manager, Wade C. Harrison examines Longleaf pine natural regeneration © Mark Godfrey.
