The UT-TIP and TWRA have worked together for more than two decades to successfully reforest lands to provide wildlife habitat and food. In the 1990s, TWRA was engaged in developing a bottomland hardwood corridor to assist migrating wildlife in the Mississippi River region by purchasing and restoring old fields to bottomland forests. Success in planting bottomland hardwoods was ephemeral, often necessitating planting sites multiple times until some measure of successful restoration was achieved. UT-TIP recommended that local seed be collected from sites where the reforestation was to occur and then grown to produce high-quality seedlings with large root systems capable of rapid growth. As shown in the photos, planting success was spectacular, with probability of restoration changing from questionable to virtually guaranteed.
TWRA Maness Swamp Refuge
