Interior Highlands Oak Ecosystem

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Why the Conservancy Selected This Site
The forests of the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains, which together are known as the Interior Highlands, have undergone massive changes and are under a great deal of stress. Historically, it's estimated these woodlands averaged 38 to 76 trees per acre. For some 8,000 years, the landscape coexisted with periodic fires that removed most of the brush and young woody growth while leaving the larger trees. Over the last century, though, the forests were heavily cut and fires largely suppressed. Without fire to keep new growth under control, tree density increased dramatically and today ranges from 300 to 1,000 stems per acre.

As the largest intact remnant of a habitat type that once stretched from Oklahoma to the middle Appalachians and Eastern seaboard, the oak woodlands of the Interior Highlands are an important part of North America's conservation picture. Together, The Nature Conservancy and its partners are committed to working at a scale large enough to bring these magnificent forests back into balance and keep them healthy into the future.

Threats
With so many more trees competing for the same amounts of nutrients and water, the forest system has become weak and vulnerable to drought, disease, and pests like the red oak borer -- an insect that has eaten its way through 350,000 acres of Arkansas' oaks already. As the dying oaks give way to overstocked stands of maple, ash, elm, and black gum, extreme pressure is exerted on the 150 animal and plant species that are adapted specifically to the Interior Highlands' traditional, oak-dominated habitat. The crowded conditions also increase the risk of intense, uncontrollable wildfires -- bad news for the forest and anyone living in or near it.

Our Conservation Strategy
The Nature Conservancy's vision is the restoration of three million acres of the Interior Highlands oak ecosystem. That's what it will take to sustain the landscape, its species, and the natural ecological processes, like fire, that bind them together.

To get there, a team of more than a dozen state and federal agencies, non-profit organizations, and educational institutions has come together to create a network of restoration sites on 500,000 acres of private and public lands. Additional strategies include:

Developing an information campaign around the restoration sites to solidify public support for ecological restoration.
Identifying and addressing public policy barriers to extensive ecological restoration.
Developing an ecological monitoring program that measures the program's progress toward biodiversity conservation.
Securing adequate funding for oak ecosystem restoration on public, private, and state lands throughout the region.

What the Conservancy Has Done/Is Doing
One of the demonstration areas, 54,000 acres in the Bayou Ranger District of the Ozark National Forest, has already received start-up funds from the U.S. Forest Service. The team has also submitted a two-year, $4.23 million proposal for funding under the National Fire Plan to restore 209,700 acres of Forest Service lands at five sites in Arkansas and Oklahoma.

In addition, portions of the Interior Highlands are included in the Fire Learning Network(FLN), a collaborative project between the U.S. Forest Service, Department of the Interior and The Nature Conservancy. The FLN promotes the development and testing of creative, adaptive, multi-ownership fire management strategies that are compatible with the National Fire Plan goals and the conservation goals of The Nature Conservancy.

Preserves/Projects/Places to Visit
Simpson Preserve at Trap Mountain
Lyon Big Piney Creek Preserve

Download a printable Interior Highlands fact sheet (PDF).