Print PageExtensive land use and development by a growing population in the Unites States over the past few decades have reduced functional ecosystems. Military installations are some of the few expansive blocks of land where viable remnants of functional ecosystems still remain. Military installations located in the Fall Line region of the southeastern United States are important to our national security as well as for sustaining longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) ecosystems. Fire-dependent longleaf pine ecosystems once occupied over 70 million acres stretching from Texas to Maryland; these ecosystems are among the most biologically diverse in the world. Fort Benning, a 182,000 acre Army installation located in west-central Georgia and eastern Alabama, contains roughly 90,000 acres that were once dominated by longleaf pine ecosystems. Remnant ecosystems on Fort Benning are diverse in native species, including globally rare species and the federally endangered red-cockaded woodpecker (Picoides borealis). Army training is the mission of Fort Benning, but now that mission must be balanced against the need to sustain and conserve important longleaf pine ecosystems, including biodiversity and the critical ecological processes and services on which life depends.
Results/Conclusions
Restoration and maintenance of the longleaf pine ecosystem, while the Army trains, is the primary land management goal on Fort Benning. In the 1990’s, land management at Fort Benning began emphasizing restoration of longleaf pine throughout its uplands. Successful results 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 pine acreage by over 24,000 acres, a 6 percent average annual increase in red-cockaded woodpecker potential breeding pairs, and development of an ecological monitoring program for quantitatively evaluating progress toward restoration goals, all while sustaining the military training mission. To maintain this balance, future efforts will focus on continued development of the monitoring program and implementing adaptive management by incorporating monitoring results and applicable research into Integrated Natural Resources Management Planning and developing decision support systems. Fort Benning aims to broaden its stewardship vision by initiating longleaf restoration activities on cooperating private lands in the vicinity of Fort Benning, while building support and capacity for this effort through strategic regional partnerships.
Contact Information: John J Brent, Fort Benning, Fort Benning, GA 31905, USA, Phone: 706-545-2180, Fax: 706-545-9495, Email: john.brent@us.army.mil
