Protected Areas

Arkansas System of Natural Areas
The Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission’s (ANHC) System of Natural Areas contains some of the best examples...
Bald Knob National Wildlife Refuge
The Bald Knob National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) consists of 14,800 acres of forest wetlands and croplands lying a...
Big Lake National Wildlife Refuge
Big Lake National Wildlife Refuge is one of the oldest inland national wildlife refuges. This 11,038-acre area...
Black Fork Mountain Wilderness
The Black Fork Mountain Wilderness is located in the Ouachita National Forest in western Arkansas and eastern ...
Blanchard Springs Caverns
Blanchard Springs Caverns (BSC) is a magnificent limestone cave system starting more than 200 feet underground...
Buffalo National River
aka: Buffalo River
The Buffalo National River, which runs through Newton, Searcy, Mari...
Cache River National Wildlife Refuge
The 62,000-acre Cache River National Wildlife Refuge is the most important wintering area for ducks and the la...
Dale Bumpers White River National Wildlife Refuge
aka: White River National Wildlife Refuge
The Dale Bumpers White River National Wildlife Refuge, located in ...
Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge
Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge encompasses approximately 65,000 acres at the confluence of the Ouachita a...
Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area
Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area in northwest Arkansas offers outdoor recreational activities such as hiking...
Holla Bend National Wildlife Refuge
Holla Bend National Wildlife Refuge (Holla Bend NWR), located six miles south of Dardanelle (Yell County), is ...
Lost 40
The Lost 40 is a forty-acre tract of mature forest along Wolf Branch (a tributary of Moro Creek) in southeaste...
Mammoth Spring
Mammoth Spring is the largest spring in the state of Arkansas, the second largest in the Ozark Mountains regio...
Mississippi Flyway
The Mississippi Flyway is one of four loosely defined routes used by some species of migratory birds as they t...
Ouachita National Forest
The Ouachita National Forest, originally called the Arkansas National Forest, was created through an executive...
Overflow National Wildlife Refuge
Overflow National Wildlife Refuge was established on November 6, 1980, to protect one of the remaining bottoml...
Ozark-St. Francis National Forests
The Ozark-St. Francis National Forests are replete with distinct topographical, geological, and biological fea...
Pond Creek National Wildlife Refuge
Pond Creek National Wildlife Refuge, the 501st refuge in the National Wildlife Refuge System, protects and pre...
South Fork Nature Center
South Fork Nature Center (SFNC), which opened in 2010, is the Gates Rogers Foundation’s premier conservancy ...
Wapanocca National Wildlife Refuge
The Wapanocca National Wildlife Refuge in Crittenden County covers 5,532 acres, at the center of which is the ...
Wildlife Management Areas
The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) oversees the state’s wildlife management areas (WMAs), which ar...