The Red River National Wildlife Refuge Restoration Initiative is a unique opportunity to restore native hardwood forests that will benefit fish and wildlife, enhance water quality along the Red River and surrounding waterways, create new areas for public recreation, and trap carbon dioxide.

On behalf of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the nonprofit Conservation Fund intends to purchase a total of 1,182 acres of private, marginal agricultural land within the boundary of the Red River National Wildlife Refuge located in Natchitoches Parish in northern Louisiana. Using donations from its Go Zero® program, the Fund will restore the entire acreage to its native bottomland hardwood forest habitat in two phases, beginning in January of 2009. Once restored, the land will be conveyed to the US Fish and Wildlife Service as an addition to the Red River National Wildlife Refuge for long-term protection and stewardship. The carbon offsets that are generated and purchased from this project will be retired and cannot be sold or banked for future offset purposes.

This project has been designed to:

• decrease the effects of climate change via carbon sequestration;
• restore Louisiana’s bottomland hardwood forest and wetland ecosystem; and
• create long-term community benefits in the form of recreational lands under the management of the US Fish and Wildlife Service – hunting, fishing, wildlife photography, wildlife observation, environmental education and environmental interpretation.