Ozark Society Recruitment

     Enjoyment of the Ozark landscape and the activities available here in our region is a common factor uniting Ozark Society members.  Outdoor recreation will always be a strong pull on attracting future members to our ranks. With the Buffalo National River a thriving tourist attraction in NW Arkansas, it is time to consider the ongoing mission of our society and the way to attract a new generation of members dedicated to the protection of that valued resource.  As a relatively recent arrival in the Ozark area my own experience is probably representative of others attracted to opportunities in the Ozark region.  Simple word of mouth reference to the Society from neighbors and colleagues caught my interest, and publicly announced programs and hikes provided a convenient introduction.  Advertised society activities including hikes, lectures and social gatherings were an obvious way for those of us interested in the outdoors to learn about the opportunities available.

     Activities such as hikes and floats continue to be a vital part of encouraging appreciation of the value of the Buffalo River and its Ozark surroundings.  Advertisement of those activities must be an important part of our recruitment effort.  Shared interest in the natural environment, opportunities for exploring those interests and the desire to preserve the landscape that provides those opportunities remain the basic elements that attract new Ozark Society members while ensuring the continued involvement of established members.

     Constant vigilance in the face of environmental threats must remain an important part of ongoing society programs – but that needs to be embedded in a wider range of efforts to enhance appreciation of what we have, and to understand the environmental processes that govern the forces acting on our landscape.  Hence the continued relevance of the refrain expressing Ozark Society activities as “Conservation, Education and Recreation”.   Conservation is the bedrock mission here but can only be sustained through active appreciation of the recreation value inherent in the Ozark region, along with knowledge of the often subtle and technologically complex processes (environmental, social and political) at work in the background.   

     After more than fifty years of environmental activism the Ozark Society, founded in 1962 remains an active force in the protection of the natural environment of the Ozarks in general, and the free-flowing Buffalo River in particular.  The society had its beginning when the relentless course of development threatened to destroy that river as a recreational corridor at a time when so few such continuous river corridors remained in our midcontinent region.  Local resident Dr. Neil Compton worked with a cadre of like-minded Ozark outdoor enthusiasts to convince Senator Fullbright and the National Park Service to consider park status for the river instead of creating yet another giant Army Corps reservoir.  After a full decade of effort, common environmental sense prevailed, and Congress passed legislation to create the first National River here in the Ozarks.  The popular resonance of that action was soon demonstrated by creation of many more national rivers in the years since that fateful legislation was passed.  This was an idea whose time had clearly come.

     Conservation has continued to be a primary emphasis in Ozark Society activities.  Lobbying for preservation of the Buffalo River in the face of relentless development has been more than just simply advocating preservation of the river.  Active efforts to familiarize government officials with the scenery and ecological values of the river were a dramatic part of the process.  The newly formed society’s effort to mobilize the wider outdoor community of the region was every bit as important as targeted political pressure.  At the same time, society pioneers began assembling a data base that would be critical in monitoring the health of the river in the transition to Park Service management.

    Continued conservation thrusts include preservation of other regional Ozark watersheds such as the Meramec in Missouri and the Illinois in Oklahoma, and creation of wilderness areas within the USFS holdings.   You can read further details about these efforts and many others on the society web page.

    The ongoing actions of the Ozark Society today are vital to the continued health of the Buffalo River and its environment because the creation of the national river was not a “one and done” event.  Conservation must, of necessity remain the bedrock foundation of the society.  Official protection status for parks, rivers and wilderness is just not a one-time thing in a democratic environment where political sentiment and commercially driven action committees can always reverse protective status.  It is a sad fact of life that a single action such as opening public land for development can destroy a pristine area, whereas such an area must continuously defend against projected development over time as economic and social sentiment evolves.  Regional development, changing land use practices, non-point-source contamination, and expanding recreational opportunities created by National Park status continue to provide new threats to the scenic river.  The recent sustained effort to remove a concentrated hog raising facility (CAFO) from a major tributary of the Buffalo is an outstanding example of what our vigilance entails.  The fact is that such a facility should never have been permitted on karst terrain by the state environmental approval system – regulations specifically state that fact.  Then opposition arose from the organized industry against allowing the precedent of destroying such a large investment on the part of the project owners.  It took relentless pressure from the public to convince our state governor to do the right thing – adequately compensate the investors to make up for a fundamental regulatory mistake.

     Ozark Society action made a vital contribution to that result.  But vigilance is still required because the economic forces in the industry that make concentrated animal feeding operations profitable still come into play.  At the same time, our society’s efforts need to recognize the importance of agriculture and forestry to the regional economy to avoid creating an image of hostility to those communities.  That’s where education and the presentation of informed proposed solution to environmental problems comes in.

     Beyond the satisfaction of helping to preserve a vital part of our Ozark environment, what does the Ozark Society have to offer new joining members?  Recreation is often the hook that pulls society members into the fold, with education eventually causing recognition of the need to conserve resources.  The society has a series of local chapters that can provide entry into locally available recreational opportunities for new arrivals to the area, or just existing member seeking new ways to experience.

     Here, conservation is not the simple process of placing pristine areas off limits to all but elite environmentalists.

     Conservation must be informed by the science needed to avoid environmental degradation in an ever more complex community of expanding population and developing facilities such as housing, industry and transportation networks.  It’s not just setting land aside, but also paying attention to habitat fragmentation and disruption of migration corridors.  Nutrient flux and eroded sediment originating outside the nominal watershed corridor can degrade the Buffalo.  Education is critical to informed publications in support of conservation while recognizing the fact of necessary competition for limited resources.  Here, resources include funding sources for environmental advocacy, operational funds for established parks like national rivers, and the limited extent of relatively undeveloped lands available for protection.

     The background education involved would include topics like the science of impending climate change, the intricacies of non-point-source contamination, the influence of sediment influx from land use practices, and the ecology of creatures that migrate into and out of the Ozarks.  Our society can play an important role in getting the specific science behind decisions related to environmental regulation out to the public as well as the politicians or regulators who will make the decisions.

     Generating a curiosity about the natural world among those who will be the environmental advocates of the future would also be an important part of Ozark Society education, as exemplified by the current program of youth grants.  In these times of intricately interconnected environmental issues, education is indeed an integral part of conservation.

     That gets us back to the beginning of this piece.  In my personal case, recreation in the form of hiking and wilderness experience in the Ozarks is the hook that reeled me in.  I selected the area for its university community, but even more for the surrounding rural outdoor environment with extensive national forest areas on the map.  The Ozark Society has regional chapters in Arkansas and Missouri, and Louisiana along with followers of society activities in adjacent states who have deep Ozark roots.  Each chapter has social and recreational activities keyed to local geography and specific local environmental conditions.  The following composite of society members actively enjoying outdoor activities in the Ozarks and the comradery that brings with it shows what still brings us together.

      After the recreation (and the appreciation of the environment comes with it), the education and conservation will naturally follow.