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The Nature Conservancy 1982 – The Nature Conservancy created its Arkansas Chapter, the 29th in the United States, with a $1 million challenge grant from the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. The Conservancy began work in the 1970s in Arkansas, acquiring lands that became 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 launched the Arkansas Natural Heritage Inventory Program, the central repository of data on the state’s biodiversity. 1984 – The Conservancy purchased 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. 1986 – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service established the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge with the transfer of 380 acres of land from the Conservancy. 1987 – By purchasing and transferring 4,400 acres to Arkansas State Parks and Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, the Conservancy helped create the Cossatot River State Park-Natural Area. 1989 – The Conservancy and the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission purchased Lorance Creek Nature Preserve, which now includes 525 acres. The preserve features interpretive signed along a boardwalk extending into the tupelo-cypress bottomland forest. 1989 – The Conservancy acquired 3,667 acres at the current headquarters of the Cache River NWR. The Conservancy acquired more than 9,000 acres in the Arkansas Delta throughout the 1980s, much of it targeted for reforestation and inclusion in the Cache River refuge. 1991 – The Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission and the Conservancy establish Terre Noire Natural Area in the rare blacklands ecosystem. A later partner-led assessment gave a complete picture of conservation needs, and subsequent acquisitions and landowner agreements resulted in thousands of acres in conservation ownership and management. Blacklands conservation was 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 accomplished by the Conservancy, Sens. Dale Bumpers and David Pryor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and Potlatch Corporation created 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, accomplished at virtually no cost to the taxpayer. 1995 – The Conservancy established 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. 1996 – Using data from a 13-month-long Conservancy ecological assessment, Sen. Bumpers, Weyerhaeuser Company, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service completed the Arkansas/Oklahoma land exchange, an act that added more than 133,000 acres to public conservation ownership in the Ouachita Mountains. Between 1998 and 2000, the Conservancy also worked with Sen. Bumpers to add 9,000 more acres to the Ouachita National Forest. 1998 – The Conservancy increased the scope of its karst work in Arkansas. In the following years, the karst program described 20 species new to science, protected several caves, installed or repaired 24 cave gates and cleaned up 230 tons of trash from cave recharge areas. In recent years, urban planners and developers used Conservancy karst sensitivity maps to safeguard endangered and rare species habitat as well as areas especially sensitive to groundwater contamination. 2001 – In response to the red oak borer outbreak in the Interior Highlands, a multi-partner oak ecosystem restoration team was established and more than 200,000 acres of woodland restoration sites were created in the following years. Monitoring 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 began its conservation forestry program, which tests economical practices that maintain habitat and is now applied to a dozen sites statewide. 2003 – The Conservancy launched its Ozark Rivers Legacy Program, an effort that brought together state, federal and private partners to address declining water quality in Ozark streams and rivers. 2005 – The Conservancy created Smith Creek Preserve with the bargain purchase of 1,226 acres above Sherfield Cave. The preserve connected the Ozark National Forest and the Upper Buffalo Wilderness Area and protects endangered Indiana bats. In the same year, the Conservancy began its Ouachita Rivers Program, initially focused on the Saline and Caddo rivers. 2006 – The Conservancy, the Arkansas Game and Fish, Arkansas Natural Heritage and Arkansas Forestry commissions purchased a 16,000-acre working-forest conservation easement from Potlatch Forest Holdings, Inc. Now open as the Moro Big Pine Natural Area WMA, the project protected native loblolly-shortleaf pine forests and wildlife, including the red-cockaded woodpecker. 
Have a comment? Please e-mail us. ŠThe Voice 2007 Revised 01/13/2008 03:27:25 PM — http://www.uamont.edu/Organizations/TheVoice/5_2/nature.htm |
