RCPP in the MAV - $25 Million NRCS Grant Award

LMVJV partners were extraordinarily pleased to learn of the recent $25,000,000 grant award by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for a Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV)-focused 2023 Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) project proposal. The funding was awarded to the Mississippi River Trust working as the lead partner in collaboration with the Tri-state Conservation Partnership (TCP).

Nationally, delivering an unprecedented $1.1 billion of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) investment, the USDA NRCS awarded funding to 81 RCPP projects that take a voluntary approach to expanding the reach of conservation efforts and climate-smart agriculture through public-private partnerships.

Specifically, the LMAV RCPP project targets the protection of priority Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) tracts at risk of being converted. The fully funded project, titled “Protecting and Enhancing Wildlife Habitat and Water Quality of Conservation Reserve Program Tracts under Threat of Conversion in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley,” will seek to permanently protect and enhance approximately 7,500 acres of vulnerable CRP bottomland hardwood and wetland tracts through U.S.-held conservation easements within the LMAV of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Through the project, TCP partners within the region are focusing on the real possibility for many tracts, which have been restored through CRP to bottomland hardwoods and shallow water wetlands, to be converted back to conventional agricultural production, resulting in the loss of USDA’s restoration investment in the tracts. The project will target the protection and enhancement of high-quality forest habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife, improve local water quality, support groundwater recharge, and increase sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. It will place particular focus on preserving CRP tracts that foster connectivity and enhance the development of larger forest blocks associated with permanently protected lands within the LMAV project area.