properties and resell them to new owners who agree to maintain the ecological integrity of the land. The fund ensures properties stay on the tax rolls and will be sustainably managed in private forests and recreational grounds. That benefits watersheds, ecosystems and wildlife, as well as local economies. The fund also feeds into itself. Money from the sales goes toward buying and protecting more properties. So far, the fund has permanently protected about 12,000 acres in the Ozarks. Due to the collaborative efforts of multiple parties in the Ozarks, nearly half of the land in the Current’s watershed is protected, much of it contiguous. “We need these big, wide areas,” says Terry Thompson, MDC’s Regional Resource Management Unit supervisor for the Ozark Region. “They are a corridor and help from having fragmentation for certain species.”
effects on the wider forest of different types of management through timber harvesting, and it followed the same rigorous monitoring. The burned plots showed the growth of ground flora at rates that were multiple times those of control plots. In November 2022, TNC transferred Chilton to MDC. The sale to the state ensures the property, which becomes part of Peck Ranch, will always be managed for conservation and forever connected to other managed lands through the Current River watershed. It also gives TNC money to reinvest in more work in the Ozarks and across the state. TNC also operates the Howard and Joyce Wood Ozarks Conservation Buyer Fund—an innovative tool that allows TNC to buy vulnerable land around the Current and Jacks Fork rivers, add permanent conservation easements on the
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