Longleaf pine ecosystem restoration: Creating a framework for adaptive management on Fort Benning, Georgia

Restoration of the longleaf pine ecosystem is a goal of numerous land managers throughout the Southeastern U.S., including on Fort Benning, a 182,000 acre U.S. Army training installation located in west-central Georgia and eastern Alabama.  Roughly 90,000 acres of Fort Benning consist of upland areas once dominated by fire-dependent longleaf pine communities.  These communities are among the most diverse in the world outside the tropics, and remnant communities on Fort Benning display high native species richness and harbor numerous rare species including the federally endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.  In the 1990s, land management goals at Fort Benning began emphasizing restoration of these communities throughout its uplands.  Here we describe an adaptive management framework for achieving restoration goals, including identification of 1) desired future conditions, 2) appropriate land management actions, 3) ecological monitoring, research and modeling needs, 4) multi-partner program planning structure, and 5) integrated assessment techniques.  Measures of success to date include quantification of the desired future condition, implementation of sustainable forestry practices, a prescribed fire program that burns over 30,000 upland acres a year, an increase in longleaf acreage by over 24,000 total acres, a 6 percent average annual increase in red-cockaded woodpecker potential breeding pairs, and development of an integrated ecological monitoring program that includes use of appropriate ecological indicators and other tools for quantitatively evaluating progress toward restoration goals.  Additional measures of success, challenges, and bridging restoration goals with Army training needs will also be presented and discussed.