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Bufffalo River Fact Sheet

Buffalo River Stewardship Foundation

Box 5003-161, Harrison AR, 72602

(501) 741-1750 E-mail: brsf@wildfire1.com

• The Buffalo River was designated by Congress as America's first National River in 1972, on the centennial anniversary of the declaration of Yellowstone as America's first National Park.

• The Buffalo River watershed (the area which drains into the river) occupies 860,000 acres in the Ozarks of northern Arkansas, primarily in rural Searcy, Newton, and Marion Counties.

• The Buffalo River is the destination for just over a million visitors annually, the state's fourth largest tourist attraction. Visitors come primarily to canoe, hunt, fish, hike, or camp.

• The National Park Service runs the Buffalo National River as a protected park, but their jurisdiction extends only to the 95,000 acres immediately adjacent to the river.

• The US Forest Service controls 26% of the watershed; the Park Service controls 11%; the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission controls 3%; and private landowners control the rest.

• Major sources of "non-point pollution" entering the Buffalo River are: runoff from pastures; forest clearing on steep slopes; brush clearing on tributary banks; and streambank erosion.