Buffalo River Re-designation (Part 2) w/ Gordon Watkins | Ep. 94 | The Ozark Podcast
Вставка
- Опубліковано 2 січ 2024
- We sat down with the president of the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, Gordon Watkins, to discuss the proposal to re-designate the Buffalo River from a National River to a National Park & Preserve AND to dig into the current Robert's Gap Project underway in Southern Missouri.
This is PART 2 of our series covering the potential re-designation of the Buffalo River from a National River to a National Park & Preserve.
To support 'The Ozark Podcast' and allow us to continue to interview men and women with a passion for the outdoors, consider joining our patreon family:
/ theozarkpodcast
LISTEN:
Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/50QIilB...
Apple Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
#ozarks #arkansas #missouri #oklahoma #kansas #podcast #listen #buffaloriver #nationalpark #conservation #legislation
The water studies would be interesting to see, and the criteria of the studies. Just an observation of my traveling Highway 14 Bridge across the Buffalo, during the summer, a lot of times It is standing room only in the parking area and the gravel bar. Paving all the roads to the river would only increase the amount of people & human wastes.
Me and my two uncles take a ten day trip in February evry year to go fish the white and we stay at a place called Rileys outfitters for the first three days it's on the white and directly across the river is where the Buffalo joins the white I have caught many of good fish I do better on browns at the confluence then I do at Northfort damn
I'm a missouri boy fom De Soto we have Joachim creek that runs through town it's on the missouri smallmouth grand slam and let me tell you I have caught some absolute studs. Gin clear bedrock bottom so clear that 12lb floro is the heaviest you can go without spooking fish. If you boys ever want help to get on some fish here on the Joachim I would be more then willing
The plan to make that part of the national forest oak savanna is news to me. First of all, props to you guys for pushing back and asking about why the forest management plan for that area might be a good thing.
I do wonder how one might stay more up to date about land management plans like that. Do you guys have any resources for staying informed?
I would love to see further podcasts where the other side weighs in on this management plan for this area.
Tyler - the US Forest Service Website is likely the best resource to take a gander at current and upcoming projects. It’s not always super easy to understand, but if you ever see one that stands out to you as noteworthy and you want to hear someone talk about it. Let us know and we will get in touch with the right people.
We’re working on getting a follow up episode to this one with someone from the other side. Stay tuned!
www.fs.usda.gov/projects/osfnf/landmanagement/projects
@@theozarkpodcast yeah like you guys said in this episode in response to his opposition to the plan, you've been talking to a lot of people that advocate for fire and removal of invasives and other methods to restore basically oak savanna. I've also been consuming a lot of information along those lines as well (Kyle Lybarger with native habitat project for example who you guys should have on btw). And I would be greatly interested to hear other perspectives, maybe these practices aren't the best way to go? Or maybe there's more nuance. I look forward to more discussions about it.
I think trying to find out what's most "natural" or "historical" is a losing battle because which point in history do we optimize for? Also if there is a way to manage things that benefits wildlife, the soil, and people, wouldn't we want to do that even if it's not exactly what was historically "natural"?
@@theozarkpodcast also just to throw in another related point. The recent meateater podcast with Will Harris of white oak pastures is great. Even if you're already familiar, this particular episode I think is worth watching. I think the things he talks about should be part of these discussions. He's optimizing for a particular ecosystem for food production (with non native ag species of animals) and yet the soil and surrounding wildlife benefit.
We have a lot of public land in Arkansas and it's important to talk about how best to manage it, but there's even more private ground and it would be great to spread the message to hopefully get private landowners to adopt some of these regenerative ag practices (especially because most ag in the Ozarks is cattle, something I'm thankful for btw). Would love to see more native grasses as part of cattle pastures and soil restoration so as to facilitate a return of biodiversity despite what's happening in the wilderness areas on public land.
Relying on public land management to fix these problems I don't think is good, not just for the reason I just mentioned about there being more private land, but also because of what the guest in this episode mentioned, he didn't think we had the funding to actually pull it off. I know in my area I've seen the forest take over pieces of ground and just let it grow up and do absolutely nothing with it, it grows up thick woody encroached thickets and they never burn it or remove problematic species. Would love to see some actual management of the land or at least be educated on why their current practices are maybe better than they appear.