Ozark-Ouachita Highlands Assessment: Social and Economic Conditions

Abstract

Change is evident across the Ozark and Ouachita Highlands. Whether paying attention to State and regional news, studying statistical patterns and trends, or driving through the Highlands, one cannot escape signs that growth may be putting strains on the area's natural resources and human communities. How people regard these changes varies widely, however, as does access to reliable information that might help them assess the significance of what is happening in the Highlands. The Assessment reports provide windows to a wealth of such information.The Social and Economic Conditions report is one of five that document the results of the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands Assessment. Federal and State natural resource agency employees and university and other cooperators worked together to produce the four technical reports that examine air quality; aquatic conditions; terrestrial vegetation and wildlife; and social and economic conditions. Dozens of experts in various fields provided technical reviews. Other citizens were involved in working meetings and supplied valuable ideas and information throughout the process. The Summary Report provides an overview of the key findings presented in the four technical reports. Data sources, methods of analysis, findings, discussion of implications, and links to dozens of additional sources of information are included in the four technical reports.The USDA Forest Service initiated the Assessment and worked with other agencies to develop a synthesis of the best information available on conditions and trends in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands. Assessment reports emphasize those conditions and trends most likely to have some bearing on the future management of the region's three national forests-the Mark Twain, Ouachita, and Ozark-St. Francis. People who are interested in the future of the region's other public lands and waters or of this remarkable region as a whole should also find the reports valuable.No specific statutory requirement led to the Assessment. However, data and findings assembled in the reports will provide some of the information relevant for an evaluation of possible changes in the land and resource management plans of the Highland's three national forests. The National Forest Management Act directs the Forest Service to revise such management plans every 10 to 15 years, which means that the national forests of Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma should have revised plans in the year 2001. Due to restrictions in the appropriations bills that provide funding for the Forest Service, it is uncertain when these revisions can begin.The charter for the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands Assessment established a team structure and listed tentative questions that the teams would address. Assembled in mid-1996, the Terrestrial, Aquatic and Atmospheric, and Human Dimensions (Social-Economic) Teams soon refined and condensed these questions and then gathered and evaluated vast quantities of information. They drafted their key findings in late 1997 and refined them several times through mid-1999. In...