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The Nature Conservancy in Arkansas Arkansas Places We Protect Contact Field Trips & Events Press Releases Volunteer Ways of Giving Fire Restoration Our Stream Restoration Blog |
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26 Years of Conservation in the Natural State
The Nature Conservancy in Arkansas Celebrates Its Silver Anniversary
1982 – The Nature Conservancy creates its Arkansas Chapter, the 29th in the United States, with a $1 million challenge grant from the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. The Conservancy has already been at work in Arkansas since the 1970s, acquiring lands that become Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area, Overflow National Wildlife Refuge and Logoly State Park. In 1978 cooperative efforts of the Conservancy and the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission launch the Arkansas Natural Heritage Inventory Program, the central repository of data on the state’s biodiversity.
1984 -- The Conservancy purchases 5,570 acres in Pulaski and Lonoke counties that are transferred to the state to form Holland Bottoms Wildlife Management Area. It is one of the most extensive remaining bottomland areas in central Arkansas and conserves significant habitat for migratory waterfowl and other native wildlife.
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1986 – The Cache River National Wildlife Refuge is established with the transfer of 380 acres of land from the Conservancy to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and with legislation supported by U.S. Senators Dale Bumpers and David Pryor.
1987 – By purchasing and transferring 4,400 acres to Arkansas State Parks and Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, the Conservancy helps create the Cossatot River State Park-Natural Area.
1989 – The Conservancy and the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission purchase Lorance Creek Nature Preserve, which now includes 525 acres. The preserve features interpretive signs along a boardwalk extending into the tupelo-cypress bottomland forest.
1989 – The Conservancy acquires 3,667 acres at the current headquarters of the Cache River NWR. Through the 1980s, the Conservancy is instrumental in acquiring more than 9,000 acres in the Arkansas Delta, much of it targeted for reforestation and inclusion in the Cache River refuge. By 1999, Arkansas becomes one of the top 10 states participating in the Wetlands Reserve Program, with more than 130 landowners enrolling 35,720 acres in the program.
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1991 – The Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission and the Conservancy establish Terre Noire Natural Area in the rare blacklands ecosystem. A later partner-led assessment gives a complete picture of conservation needs, and subsequent acquisitions and landowner agreements result in thousands of acres in conservation ownership and management. Blacklands conservation is strengthened with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s acquisition of the 4,885-acre Rick Evans Grandview Prairie Wildlife Management Area in 1997.
1992 – The 41,000-acre Arkansas/Idaho land exchange is accomplished by the Conservancy, Senators Dale Bumpers and David Pryor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Potlatch Corporation to create a 160-mile protected corridor along the White River connecting the Cache River and White River refuges. The exchange, with a land value in excess of $20 million, is accomplished at virtually no cost to the taxpayer.
1995 – The Conservancy establishes its Arkansas fire restoration program, which now consists of two burn crews that have restored fire to more than 60,000 acres of public and private land in the state. Three years later, the Conservancy teams with the Arkansas Natural Heritage and Arkansas Game and Fish commissions as well as the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a state prescribed fire workshop program, which has trained more than 500 natural resource managers so far.
1996 – The Conservancy teams with many partners to help pass the state 1/8-cent Conservation Sales Tax, which is used to purchase and protect natural lands.
1996 -- Using data from a 13-month-long Conservancy ecological assessment, Senator Dale Bumpers, Weyerhaeuser Company, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service complete the Arkansas/Oklahoma land exchange, an act that adds more than 133,000 acres to public conservation ownership in the Ouachita Mountains. Between 1998 and 2000, the Conservancy also works with Sen. Bumpers to add 9,000 more acres to the Ouachita National Forest.
1997 – More than 100,000 acres are enrolled in a newly created ecological restoration program managed by the Conservancy and the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission. The project includes the implementation of stewardship plans at 12 sites across the state. Also, the Conservancy enters into a restoration agreement with Pine Bluff Arsenal on 6,000 acres and in the following year with Fort Chaffee on 55,000 acres.
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1998 – With the gift of Bear Hollow Cave from the John Cooper family, the Conservancy increases the scope of its karst work in Arkansas. In the following years, the karst program describes 20 species new to science, protects several caves, installs or repairs 24 cave gates, and cleans up 230 tons of trash from cave recharge areas. In recent years, urban planners and developers have used Conservancy karst sensitivity maps to safeguard endangered and rare species habitat as well as areas especially sensitive to groundwater contamination.
1999 – With support from the Walton Family Foundation, the Arkansas program begins site-based programs in three areas: the Ozark karst ecosystem, the Strawberry River watershed and the Big Woods.
2001 – In response to the red oak borer outbreak in the Interior Highlands, a multi-partner oak ecosystem restoration team is established and more than 200,000 acres of woodland restoration sites are created in the following years. Monitoring soon shows benefits of prescribed burning and ecological thinning at the sites, leading to a significant increase in these activities throughout the state.
2002 – With the creation of the 820-acre Kingsland Prairie Preserve, the Conservancy begins its conservation forestry program, which tests economical practices that maintain habitat and which is now applied to a dozen sites statewide.
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2003 –Fred Berry makes a lead gift to launch the Conservancy’s Ozark Rivers Legacy Program, an effort that brings together state, federal and private partners to address declining water quality in Ozark streams and rivers. With a gift from Anderson-Tully Company, the Conservancy launches the Lower Mississippi River Program to support conservation within seven Delta states.
2004 – An ivory-billed woodpecker is observed and confirmed in the Big Woods. With the rediscovery, the Conservancy accelerates its efforts in the Big Woods, helping conserve some 15,500 acres and planting more than two million trees.
2005 – The Conservancy creates Smith Creek Preserve with the bargain purchase of 1,226 acres above Sherfield Cave. The preserve connects the Ozark National Forest and the Upper Buffalo Wilderness Area and protects endangered Indiana bats. In the same year, the Conservancy begins its Ouachita Rivers Program, initially focused on the Saline and Caddo rivers.
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2006 – The Conservancy and the Arkansas Game and Fish, Arkansas Natural Heritage and Arkansas Forestry commissions purchase a 16,000-acre working-forest conservation easement from Potlatch Forest Holdings, Inc. Slated to open as the Moro Big Pine Wildlife Management Area and natural area, the project protects native loblolly-shortleaf pine forests and wildlife, including the red-cockaded woodpecker.
2008 -- Through the donation of a 2,900-acre conservation easement from the Calion Lumber Company, the Conservancy creates the Ouachita River Nature Preserve. The preserve includes six miles of frontage along both sides of the lower Ouachita River and is made up of old-growth bottomland hardwoods.
Looking forward, The Nature Conservancy is dedicated to meeting the global challenges that will mark the next 25 years, from protecting freshwater resources to confronting climate change. Though those challenges are daunting, the history of The Nature Conservancy shows a group of dedicated people really can change the world.
The Nature Conservancy is the leading conservation organization working to protect the most ecologically important lands and waters around the world for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.
