Natural Resources
The Mark Twain National Forest administers approximately 1,485,800 acres in southern Missouri.
This constitutes approximately 10% of the forested land and 84% of the publicly owned forested land in Missouri (Resource Bulletin NC-139). The Forest is composed of nine separate geographic units in 29 counties which span the state 200 miles east to west and 175 miles north to south. Private land parcels are scattered throughout the Forest boundaries. On average, Federal ownership within the boundaries of the National Forest is about 49%, and ranges from a low of 24% at Cedar Creek unit to a high of 71% at Doniphan/Eleven Point unit.
The Mark Twain lies mostly within the Ozark Highlands, a region long distinguished for its extraordinary geological, hydrological and ecological diversity. Signature features include crystal-clear springs, over 5,000 caves, rocky barren glades, ancient volcanic mountains and nationally recognized streams. The Ozarks have been continuously available for plant and animal life since the late Paleozoic period, constituting perhaps the oldest continuously exposed landmass in North America (Yatskievych 1999).
In the Ozarks, eastern oak hardwood and southern pine woodlands converge with the drier western tallgrass prairie, creating a distinctive array of open grassy woodlands and savannas. This rich mixture of unique, diverse and ecologically complex natural communities provides a high level of habitat diversity. The high level of habitat diversity, influx of biota from divergent regions through thousands of years of climatic events, effects of past glaciation to the north, and extreme antiquity of the landscape have combined to support relict populations and allow for development of at least 160 endemic species.
The Mark Twain National Forest occurs in five of the seven major river basins in the Missouri portion of the Ozark Highlands. Eleven primary streams and rivers course through these basins, portions of which occur within the Mark Twain. Because of the region’s karst topography, the Ozarks are home to the world’s largest collection of first magnitude springs (those with over 65 million gallons of water flow daily.)
By managing for ecological sustainability, forest ecosystems will be healthy and resilient in the long term and will provide a lasting flow of goods and services that help sustain the economy and local communities. Managing for ecological sustainability requires an integrated management approach that considers natural processes such as fire, insect and disease outbreaks, and catastrophic wind events, along with forest management activities that mimic those natural events.