The Nature Conservancy in Louisiana - East Gulf Coastal Plain

East Gulf Coastal Plain

Although the facilities vary from first class to primitive, there are numerous areas open to the public that afford visitors an opportunity to experience this unique region. The Tunica Hills Wildlife Management Area is only minimally developed and the spectacular scenery is worth some previsit planning (a Wild Louisiana Stamp or a hunting or fishing license is required). Port Hudson State Commemorative Area includes a series of well-maintained hiking trails, a large picnic area and an historical museum. The Mary Ann Brown Preserve includes a self-guided interpretive trail, two additional hiking trails and a pavilion and camping area for school and scout groups.

Historic Condition
When Samuel Lockett traveled by mule-drawn carriage around the Florida Parishes in 1871 documenting the natural conditions of the region and commenting upon its development potential, he fell in love with the beauty of the region.

Describing much of Washington, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, St. Helena and Livingston parishes as unbroken expenses of longleaf pine, Lockett wrote of "the most beautiful, limpid streams imaginable... The transparency can scarcely be realized from a mere description," he noted.

In addition to the longleaf pine-dominated uplands and wetlands, Lockett mentioned encountering a wide variety of plant community types including:

expansive bottomland hardwood forest in the Pearl River Basin
slash pine-pond cypress/hardwood forest in the southern wetlands
hardwood slope forest along some of the steeper slopes in the north
mixed hardwood forest on the loess soils near Baton Rouge
live oak-pine-magnolia forests along the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain
small prairies in East Baton Rouge and East Feliciana parishes.

One of the greatest forces influencing the composition of these regions has been glacial movements in the north over the last two million years. With each glacial advance, a tremendous quantity of water is tied up in glaciers and sea levels concomitantly decline. As glaciers melt during the warmer periods, sea levels rise again, rivers are forced over their banks and sediments are deposited on the adjacent uplands. In the Florida Parishes, the result of these changes in sea level has been the creation of a series of well-drained terraces and rolling hills in the north, grading into a broad region of poorly drained flatlands to the south.

Although these ecoregions share a similar geological history and are structured by many of the same natural forces, one primary factor separating them was the frequency of fire, which greatly controlled the vegetation present.

In the eastern Florida Parishes, formerly subjected to frequent fire, longleaf pine dominated. In the western Florida Parishes, loess-influenced soils in the north and frequent flooding in the south greatly reduced the frequency of fire, leading to forests dominated by loblolly, shortleaf or spruce pine and many species of hardwoods.

Historically, open longleaf pine forest dominated much of the Florida Parishes. Agriculture and demand for timber and turpentine changed that. By the turn of the 20th century the tremendous pine stands of the Northeast and Great Lakes states had been depleted, leaving the expansive longleaf pine region of the southeastern U. S. to meet the needs of a growing country.

By the start of World War II, nearly all of the virgin longleaf pine and pine-hardwood forests in southeastern Louisiana had been cleared for timber.

Current Condition
In the past 30 years, many of the remaining natural longleaf pine and pine-hardwood forests have been converted to pine plantations to maximize timber production. Urban expansion in Livingston and St. Tammany Parishes-among the fastest growing parishes in Louisiana-has been the final straw for much of the remaining longleaf forests.

The loss has been so great that the Louisiana Natural Heritage Program contends that the natural habitats in this ecoregion are among the most threatened in Louisiana and the Southeast. For example, the Heritigae Program estimates that less than 5% of the original wet longleaf pine forest in this ecoregion remains.

Biodiversity Significance
Habitat loss, combined with the fact that many eastern species reach the western limit of their range in the Florida Parishes, finds this region supporting more rare, threatened or endangered species of animals and plants than any other Louisiana region.

Approximately 35 species of animals and 75 species of plants require conservation attention in this region. Some of the animals considered imperiled include the inflated heelspittter mussel, Gulf of Mexico sturgeon, ringed sawback turtle, gopher tortoise, Red-cockaded Woodpecker and Louisiana black bear, all of which are listed as threatened or endangered in Louisiana.

Some of the globally imperiled plants found in this region are the Louisiana quillwort, bog spicebush and Correll's false dragonhead. State rare plants in this region include showy flowers such as the pinewoods lily, pink coreopsis, yellow fringeless orchid and bog flame flower, all of which are found on TNC preserves in St. Tammany Parish.

Conservation Efforts
One of the earliest land acquisition projects attempted by the Conservancy in Louisiana was the purchase of over 20,000 acres of bottomland forest in the Pearl River Basin, which served to link Pearl River Wildlife Management Area with Bogue Chitto National Wildlife Refuge. These two sites protect a significant portion of one of the South's last relatively natural bottomland systems and provide habitat for many rare species, including the Louisiana black bear, ringed sawback turtle, and Swallow-tailed Kite.

Additional Conservancy acquisitions in Pearl River Drainage Basin include the 586-acre White Kitchen Preserve, adjacent to the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area, which supports a Bald Eagle nest site that has been active for over 80 years. The 145-acre Charter Oak Preserve protects an old-growth bayhead swamp, an unusual "floating prairie-cypress savanna" and several rare plants.

Lastly, the 22-acre Pushepatapa Preserve, borders the beautiful Pushepatapa Creek and is the only protected site in Louisiana for the spectacular mountain laurel.

Lake Ramsay, Abita Creek Flatwoods, and Talisheek Pine Wetlands Preserves protect the natural habitats most representative of this region and most imperilled by current and historic land use changes-wet longleaf pine savanna and flatwoods. Together these preserves protect nearly 3,000 acres of longleaf-dominated habitats and more than two dozen species of rare plants and animals.

Public agencies also have aggressively worked to protect and manage significant portions of this region. Some of the more important public conservation projects in the Florida Parishes inclue the 38,000-acre Bogue Chitto National Wildlife Refuge, the 5,000-acre Big Branch National Wildlife Refuge, the 35,000-acre Pearl River Wildlife Management Area, the 3,500-acre Sandy Hollow Wildlife Management Area, and the 800-acre Lake Ramsay Wildlife Management Area (adjacent to our Lake Ramsay Preserve).

Opportunities for Public Visitation
Thousands of people use the Chevron boardwalk on our White Kitchen Preserve during the nesting season of Bald Eagles (October through April) and recently completed trails on our Lake Ramsay and Abita preserves provide the public with access to high-quality pine savanna wetlands. Additionally, developed nature trails are available on Pearl River Wildlife Management Area and Big Branch National Wildlife Refuge, both of which are in southeastern St. Tammany Parish.