715 acres added to Fenvkvcēkv Creek Preserve at Flagg Mountain

Montane longleaf pines have become a focus for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in recent years and more work is being done to preserve them in Alabama.

Recently, TNC announced it officially bought 715 acres of land along the Fenvkvcēkv Creek, adding to the preserve already in place at Flagg Mountain. Once all currently open dealings are done, the preserve will be roughly 1800 acres.

“The Nature Conservancy’s land protection strategy is to try to create a connection from the gulf to the Appalachians. This is one of those critical corridors where that can occur… It’s sort of the anchor to the Appalachian part of this corridor. There’s a growing opportunity to connect Flagg Mountain to the Talladega National Forest to the Dugdown Corridor.”

~ Keith Tassin, TNC deputy state director

The new preserve has been made possible through TNC partnerships with Forever Wild, The Conservation Fund and the Alabama Forestry Commission.

Keep reading to find out more about the preserve + why it’s so important to the state of Alabama.

Montane Longleaf Pine

The new tract of land mostly lies on the opposite side of the creek from the previous land purchased. TNC says there are now more than four miles of the creek preserved because of this new deal.

A big reason for that deal is the stand of mature montane longleaf pines along the creek. Keith Tassin said Alabama holds a special place for the tree.

“Longleaf pine in general once covered 90 million acres from Virginia to Texas. Alabama and part of Georgia are the only places that longleaf occurred in a mountainous type habitat so of that original 90 million acres, already a very small part of that was montane. Then all the conversion to industrial plantations that has reduced that even more so it’s a pretty rare ecosystem.”

~ Keith Tassin, TNC deputy state director

There are some of these trees in our state that are over 200 years old. Longleaf pine is the official state tree of Alabama.

Red-cockaded woodpecker

Tassin said he hopes the preserve can bring back a population of the red-cockaded woodpecker to the area. There are already nearby populations but the preserve can provided an opportunity for those populations to co-exist and interact.

“One of the things we’re trying to bring back here is the the red-cockaded woodpecker which recently got downlisted to federally threatened instead of federally endangered. It is our desire to within five to seven years to restore the habitat enough that we can re-introduce the woodpeckers on to this property.”

~ Keith Tassin, TNC deputy state director

But TNC hopes the preserve will help species beyond the woodpecker too. Tassin says corridors like the one in Alabama will allow species to move further north as needed, providing more natural habitat options.

The creek also serves as a connection between the mountains, the forest and the ocean.

“Alabama is number one in the aquatic bio diversity. That’s the cool part of a lot of the places we work in Alabama. While we’re doing forest protection, we are protecting the water quality, quantity and a lot of neat highly biodiverse stream and river systems. Almost everywhere we’re working, there’s that duality.”

~ Keith Tassin, TNC deputy state director

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