Nechako Restoration through Future Supply of Cottonwoods

NEEF Funding: $225,000

Total Project Budget: $882,000

Start Date: September 2024

End Date: May 2027

Description:

Mature cottonwood trees are among the most important streamside features for wildlife, providing food and critical cavity habitats for a diversity of mammals and birds. Mature cottonwood wildlife trees are readily found along the Nechako River, but prevalence of younger cohorts is insufficient to replace these aging trees. Recruitment is now a limiting factor, and the mature specimens present today are a legacy from a once healthy river ecosystem.

The purpose of this project is to plant cottonwood seedlings in valley-bottom habitats along the Nechako corridor (Fort Fraser to Prince George) to restore areas degraded by altered hydrology, or lost to forest harvest and agriculture, and to secure a sustainable supply of cotton trees in regions where recruitment is low. 

Project Goals:

• To establish 150,000 cottonwood seedlings per year over three years (450,000 total)
  along stretches of the Nechako system, including lower sections of adjoining tributaries.
• Evaluation of various propagation and establishment techniques for restoring cottonwood
  habitats.
• Quantification of short-term survivorship of planted stock and initiation of a long-term
  monitoring and assessment program.

Proponent: Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship