Ozark Woodland Owners Association

AR Forestry Comm

Marketing Your Timber for Top Dollar

Loblolly Pine Management

Prescribed Burning in Arkansas Forests

Red Oak Borer

Value of Harvested Timber

Area of Timberland by Ownership Class

Acreage of Timberland

Forestry in Independence County

Independence County has 219,800 acres of timber.  Farmers/ranchers and private individuals own two-thirds of the timberland in the County.

The value of harvested timber  fluctuated between 1997 and 2000.  Stumpage value rose from $2.6 million in 1997 to $4.2 million in 1998 and then declined to $2.4 million in 2000.

Arkansas Forests

Forests provide a diversity of products and other important benefits including wildlife habitat, recreational opportunities, watershed protection, and aesthetic values.

Statewide, there are 18,778,660 acres of forest land representing approximately 56% of the total land base. Of this, 27% is pine, 17% is mixed hardwood and pine, 39% is upland oak-hickory forests, and the remaining 16% are bottomland species including some oak, cypress, cottonwood, and elm.

Arkansas forest acreage has increased by 6.5% since 1988.  Private landowners including farmers, ranchers, and other individuals own over 58% of the forest land in the state and many actively manage their forest lands.  National Forests account for 12.4% (2.3 million acres) of Arkansas’s total forested acreage. Forest resource companies own or lease 25% of the state’s forest land.

The forest products industry, including the pulp and paper industry, is the state’s largest manufacturer and directly employed 47,400 employees in 1995 with a payroll of $1.17 billion. A total of $4.0 billion was contributed in value-added dollars in 1995.