Calion Ouachita River Wilderness

Calion Lumber Company, Inc. is the largest private land conservation project in Arkansas. With over 40,000 acres of bottomland hardwoods conserved along the Ouachita River, it is truly in a league of its own. Decades of conservative sustainable forest management have created a unique area asset. Participation in the NativState forest carbon project will allow the continuation and the strengthening of that guiding philosophy.

In 1916, Calion Lumber Company, Inc. purchased 11,750 acres in Calhoun County, Arkansas. Over the next 100 years, Calion would acquire over 30,000 acres of timberland and improve its production facilities to become one of the premier purveyors of hardwood dimension lumber in the country.  Revenue generated from the NativState forest carbon program will allow Calion to harvest with a low impact approach, minimizing disturbance to the ecosystem, increasing biodiversity, accelerating carbon sequestration, and improving wildlife habitat.

Calion’s lands are located in the West Gulf Coastal Plain ecoregion of Arkansas. Prior to European settlement, this area had one of the highest levels of landscape biodiversity of any ecoregion in Arkansas. Calion’s lands extend to both sides of the Ouachita River, primarily comprised of contiguous fertile bottomlands. 
 
The Calion Ouachita River Wilderness project presents an exciting opportunity to conserve native hardwood forests. Through intensified sustainable forest management, this project will protect, maintain, and manage a key piece of Arkansas’ existing biodiversity and vulnerable ecosystems.