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The Sandhills: Working with the Military
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| Sandhills © John Warner |
One of The Nature Conservancy’s most unusual partnerships began in 1991, when the Department of Defense contracted with the Conservancy and the Natural Heritage Program to conduct biological surveys on more than 100,000 acres on Fort Bragg and Camp Mackall.
The results were staggering: Bragg’s longleaf pine forests supported more than 1,100 plant species (nearly a quarter of the species that grow in North Carolina), including a number of rare plants thought to have been extirpated from the state and six species never before known to exist here.
Building on this relationship, the Conservancy and the Department of the Army entered into a cooperative agreement in 1995, outlining a plan to work collaboratively to protect habitat around Fort Bragg for the federally endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. The Army provided matching funds for land acquisition, maintained woodpecker habitat on military land through prescribed burning activities and became an active partner in local conservation efforts by participating in the Conservation Center for the Sandhills with the Conservancy and several other organizations.
“We realized that Fort Bragg was, in many ways, a natural partner. The Army frequently set small, easily controlled fires through live artillery practice, which benefits the longleaf ecosystem greatly. Also, they had a vested interest in keeping a healthy buffer zone around Fort Bragg, since military training and development are really not compatible,” says Rick Studenmund, former Sandhills Project Director and now the Chapter’s Director of Conservation Programs. “We found that our common ground was the beginning of a very successful project that has protected almost 13,000 acres near Fort Bragg, spawning look-alike projects in North Carolina and elsewhere across the country.”
The partnership has been a great success by any measure, but one of the most significant benchmarks was reached last year, when officials announced that the Sandhills population of red-cockaded woodpecker was officially recovered, five years ahead of schedule.
