Arkansas forests and natural resources are critical to the state's economy and well-being of its citizens; the state is known as 'the natural state '. Much of the state (54%) is forested, with the…

Arkansas forests and natural resources are critical to the state's economy and well-being of its citizens; the state is known as 'the natural state '. Much of the state (54%) is forested, with the most prevalent forest types being OAK-hickory (40%) and loblolly and shortleaf pine (32%). These diverse forests provide habitat to diverse wildlife species. These range from game species, such as deer, turkey, and ducks, to songbirds for wildlife viewing, and many reptiles and amphibians. Arkansas forests also provide clean drinking water to metropolitan areas and protect other important watersheds. Raw materials from arkansas forests support a vibrant forest products industry that contributed $13 billion to the state's economy in 2024. Non-industrial private forest landowners own 69% of arkansas's forestlands. This landowner group is extremely diverse and includes farmers, ranchers, homeowners, teachers, factory workers, professionals, and retirees. The demand for benefits from the state's forests, including wildlife habitat and forest products, must increasingly be met by these private forest landowners. However, many of these landowners are unfamiliar with sustainable forest management practices, timber marketing, habitat restoration, reforestation incentives, and other vital information critical to sustaining forestlands. Most of them also hold their forestlands for reasons other than timber management. The security of future timber supplies, forest ecosystem services and forest health is thus compromised by lack of landowner knowledge of these issues. Several issues are threatening arkansas forests. Invasive pests including feral hogs, emerald ASH borer, and laurel wilt disease are but a few of the direct factors affecting forest health in rural and urban forests. Foresters are also concerned about a potential increase in pine bark beetles and suddenly lethal behavior of brown spot needle blight in loblolly pine, resulting from stress of overstocked conditions and precipitation extremes. Other less-direct factors are forest fragmentation, forest densification, climate variability, and weak forest products markets, particularly for small-diameter trees. Weak markets create constraints to sustainable management for private landowners. New forest-based products, including BIO-energy, wood pellets and composite dimensional timbers are still in the development but will hopefully augment and increase demand for wood products. Our goal then, is to increase the capacity of landowners, managers, and professionals to manage and sustain healthy forest ecosystems that meet human and ecological needs. Associated with this goal, our objectives are to improve forestry stakeholder awareness of forest and wildlife management practices by: (1) hosting in-person events (workshops, field tours), (2) hosting virtual events (WEBINARS), (3) conducting demonstration projects, (4) developing web-based management tools and (5) publishing research-based information through diverse media (bulletins, popular press, media releases, internet articles).