1 People for the West was recently renamed People for the U.S.A.
2 Take Back Arkansas is based in Fayetteville, AR. According to a TBA membership pamphlet, TBA is a non-profit, grass-roots organization composed of citizens who are concerned about private property rights in Arkansas and the United States. Their goals are to monitor the impact of law and regulation on private property, lobby for laws protecting private property rights, and seek "redress for abuses" of private property rights in Arkansas (Take Back Arkansas, membership pamphlet). TBA was a key opposition organization during the OMAB controversy.
3 The OMAB nomination and Biosphere Reserves were important topics at this conference. Speakers at this conference included: Betty Beaver of Hot Springs, AR; David Bright of Harrison, AR; Arkansas State Senator Fay Boozman; Ed Manor of Jasper, AR; and Dan Lahrman of Gamiliel, AR.
4 Other speakers included: Marge Welch of People for the U.S.A.; Ray Cunio of Citizens for Private Property Rights; John Robb, a farmer/land owner in Illinois: Norm Davis of Take Back Kentucky; Jack Walters of the Missouri Republican Assembly (Columbia, MO); and Joel O'Connor of the Missouri Republican Assembly (Festus, MO).
5 According to Faulkner and White (1991:25) the exact boundary of the Ozarks was determined by consulting "natural divisions" maps. Such maps integrated a variety of criteria, such as "geologic substrate, physiography, soil, vegetation, and distributions of native flora and fauna," to determine the natural boundary of the Ozarks (Faulkner and White 1991).
6 The proposed core areas would have included various land holdings of the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, the Missouri Natural Areas Committee, the National Park Service, and the United States Forest Service. Federal Research Natural Areas and Federal Wilderness Areas would also have been included (Faulkner and White 1991:38-39).
7 The proposed areas of managed use would have potentially included State of Arkansas lands, State of Missouri lands, Mark Twain National Forest, Ozark National Forest, Ozark National Scenic Riverways, Buffalo National River, and private conservation and preservation lands (Faulkner and White 1991:39).
8 Winrock International is an international organization focused on "increasing agricultural productivity and rural employment while protecting the environment (Thompson 1998)."
9 Speakers included: Dave Foster of the National Park Service, Ozark National Scenic Riverways; Hubert Hinote of the Southern Appalachian Biosphere Reserve; Tom Foti of the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission; Dr. Donald E. Voth of the Depart of Rural Sociology, University of Arkansas; Dr. Milton Rafferty of the Department of Geography, Geology, and Planning, Southwest Missouri State University; Dr. Robert Flanders of the Center for Ozark Studies and Professor of History, Southwest Missouri State University. Panal discussants included Andy Anderson of Ozark Scenic Rivers Partnership, Loring Bullard of the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks, Gary Valen of the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Gregg Galbraith of ORLT, and Marck Van Patten of the Conservation Federation of Missouri.
10 The URL for Take Back Arkansas was: http://www.users.nwark.com/~tbark/mab/mab.html [update: 08/05 site is defunct, cannot find alternative] At this site the user can view a series of correspondence between Buffalo National River, Arkansas Game and Fish, and the Governor of Arkansas (Mike Huckabee). These documents allegedly show the activity and subsequent government cover-up of OMAB.
11 According to US MAB local communities can expect to accrue tangible benefits from participation in the Biosphere Reserve Program. Those benefits projected include: "international recognition, a stronger voice in environmental management, better access to scientific information, employment opportunities, enhanced valuation of traditional uses and cultural integrity, improved access to financial and technical resources, and opportunities to create partnerships that enable stakeholders to educate each other on the benefits of integrating conservation and development (US MAB 1994:16)."
12 Most of the official MAB publications examined for this research, particularly those pertaining to local communities and Man and Biosphere Reserves, were published after the inception of the Ozark Highland Biosphere Reserve nomination effort (1988). It must be noted that the OMAB Steering Committee obviously did not have access to these official US and UN publications for most of the nomination process. However, we include analysis of these documents because they were, for the most part, made widely available to the public when opposition to the OMAB effort began to publicly surface in the media. For this reason, we assume that the information in these more recent documents is an accurate representation of official sentiments at the inception and throughout the OMAB nomination effort.
13 For a more detailed discussion of the research methods see pages 42 and 43 of the Feasibility Study for an Ozark Man and the Biosphere Cooperative.
14 Here a distinction must be noted between "included," "addressed," and "represented." Given the nature of the OMAB opposition, it is our opinion that efforts to include—that is seat opponents as representatives on the Steering Committee or otherwise engage them in efforts to forward the nomination—would have done little to either heighten opponents' desire to compromise or further the nomination. Addressing opponents, that is opening a channel of communication where committee members talk with groups about the proposed nomination and discuss opponent concerns, on the other hand, would have brought issues to the fore earlier in the process allowing committee members time to discuss concerns as they arose or, if necessary, to determine early on that a MAB was not feasible in their area. Finally, it important to make a distinction between representation and inclusion. While it is probably impossible to actively include all stakeholders in a MAB nomination effort, it is certainly possible for all interests to be acknowledged and represented throughout the nomination process.
15 Privately owned lands that may have been part of the OMAB included Pioneer Forest, Nature Conservancy holdings, and ORLT holdings.
16 Two separate individuals, a newspaper editor and a Southern Missouri private property rights activist, shared accounts of Time Magazine journalists who came to the Ozarks in search of a story on the issue.
17 Opponents cited and interpreted a variety of scientific and environmental jargon. Environmental or management jargon set red flags for opponents. According to opponents, these words indicated environmental activities that would threaten property rights and/or such language was indicative of the UN/environmental conspiracy. Other words and phrases identified by opponents as suspect and loaded were: ecoregion, bioregion, ecosystem management, conservation biology, biodiversity, quality of life, preservation, tree ordinance, endangered species, habitat, watchful wildlife, scenic highways/riverways, heritage sites, scenic culture, consensus building, overcoming resistance to change, sustainable development, sustainable communities, and critical habitat.
18 In fact it was somewhat difficult
for people to believe that MABs were not controlled by the UN when
entrance signs to designated US parks announced that they have been
designated a United Nations Man and the Biosphere Reserve. This
circumstance struck many opponents as somewhat counter
intuitive. Opponents continually noted such displays located at
Yellowstone National Park and the Great Smoky Mountains as US parks
that had already been acquiesced to the UN.
To contact authors direct correspondence to: Theresa L. Goedeke, Department of Rural Sociology, 5 Sociology Building, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211, Telephone (573) 882-7264, E-Mail: c677194@showme.missouri.edu