Peer Reviewed The Role of the Wetland Reserve Program in Conservation Efforts in the Mississippi River Alluvial Valley SAMMY L. KING, 1 United States Geological Survey, Louisiana Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Louisiana State University AgCenter, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA DANIEL J. TWEDT, United States Geological Survey, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Vicksburg, MS 39180, USA R. RANDY WILSON, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Jackson, MS 39213, USA Abstract The Mississippi River Alluvial Valley includes the floodplain of the Mississippi River from Cairo, Illinois, USA, to the Gulf of Mexico. Originally this region supported about 10 million ha of bottomland hardwood forests, but only about 2.8 million ha remain today. Furthermore, most of the remaining bottomland forest is highly fragmented with altered hydrologic processes. During the 1990s landscape-scale conservation planning efforts were initiated for migratory birds and the threatened Louisiana black bear (Ursus americanus luteolus). These plans call for large-scale reforestation and restoration efforts in the region, particularly on private lands. In 1990 the Food, Agriculture, Conservation and Trade Act authorized the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP). The WRP is a voluntary program administered by the United States Department of Agriculture that provides eligible landowners with financial incentives to restore wetlands and retire marginal farmlands from agricultural production. As of 30 September 2005, over 275,700 ha have been enrolled in the program in the Mississippi River Alluvial Valley, with the greatest concentration in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi, USA. Hydrologic restoration is common on most sites, with open-water wetlands, such as moist-soil units and sloughs, constituting up to 30% of a given tract. Over 33,200 ha of open-water wetlands have been created, potentially providing over 115,000,000 duck-use days. Twenty-three of 87 forest-bird conservation areas have met or exceed core habitat goals for migratory songbirds and another 24 have met minimum area requirements. The WRP played an integral role in the fulfillment of these goals. Although some landscape goals have been attained, the young age of the program and forest stands, and the lack of monitoring, has limited evaluations of the program’s impact on wildlife populations. (WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN 34(4):914–920; 2006) Key words black bear, conservation, migratory birds, Mississippi Alluvial Valley, restoration, Ursus americanus luteolus, Wetland Reserve Program, wetlands. The Wetland Reserve Program (WRP) is a voluntary program implemented by the Natural Resources Conserva- tion Service (NRCS) in the United States Department of Agriculture. Under program guidelines, eligible landowners are provided financial incentives to restore wetlands and retire marginal farmlands from agricultural production. The WRP was first authorized in the 1990 Food, Agriculture, Conservation and Trade Act (commonly referred to as the 1990 farm bill) and has been renewed in subsequent farm bill legislation. According to the act, the Secretary of Agriculture ‘‘... in consultation with the Secretary of the Interior, shall place priority on acquiring easements based on the value of the easement for protecting and enhancing habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife’’ (United States Congress 1990). Depending on the type of easement secured, the government will pay all (permanent easements) or part of restoration costs and the landowner also will receive an easement payment (United States Natural Resources Conservation Service [USNRCS] 2004). As of 2003 nearly 600,000 ha have been enrolled in WRP (USNRCS 2003). Most of the enrollments have been in the Mississippi River Alluvial Valley (MAV), which includes the floodplain of the Mississippi River extending from Cairo, Illinois, USA, through parts of 7 states to the Gulf of Mexico (Llewellyn et al. 1996). This region also supports major wildlife habitat-restoration programs and WRP is playing a critical role in the fulfillment of these large-scale conservation efforts (King and Keeland 1999, Schoenholtz et al. 2001). Our objectives in this paper are to discuss and evaluate the role of WRP in addressing large-scale conservation objectives in the MAV, and identify current and future challenges to these conservation efforts. We briefly summarize existing literature and draw on personal experiences and the knowledge of state coordinators of WRP in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas, USA, as well as several other state and federal NRCS staff involved with WRP. Background Understanding the form, behavior, and historical context of landscapes is a critical prerequisite to understanding ecosystems on several temporal and spatial scales (Swanson et al. 1988). The development of the MAV has been influenced by numerous processes including glaciation, climate, relative sea level, tectonism, and subsidence (Saucier 1994). Although the region was not directly glaciated during the Quantenary, it served as a sluiceway for melting glacial waters and glaciation was the single most important event to influence the structure and development of the region 1 E-mail: sking16@lsu.edu 914 Wildlife Society Bulletin  34(4)