An Interview with Arkansas’ Director of the Office of Outdoor Recreation, Katherine Andrews

AAC: Tell us about a moment of joy you’ve experienced being outside in Arkansas recently.

Katherine Andrews: It’s so hard to decide! I grew up in Arkansas hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, biking—anything and everything you can think of outside. Recently, we went trout fishing on the White River in July of 2022. I caught the largest fish I’ve ever caught, a 5 lb Rainbow Trout, with my dad and my husband in our boat. Not only was it cool to catch that big of a fish, but being there with family was even better. The White River is known for its trophy trout fish—we try to take a trip there every summer. 

AAC: Give us some background. Why was the Arkansas Office of Outdoor Recreation created? 

KA: AR OREC was created by executive order in June of 2021. Arkansas saw incredible growth in outdoor recreation during Covid, some of the highest tourism figures we’d seen to date—and because of that, record investment of millions and millions of dollars in outdoor recreation infrastructure. We saw trails being built, land being conserved for recreation, record visitation…and because AR has a tourism tax, our tourism tax figures were the biggest they had been. We had seen this momentum, and all the states before us that had created these kinds of offices, and we realized we needed to capitalize on this momentum and all the excitement, all of the investment, and try to grow this sector of our economy even more. So therefore, our main mission is to leverage our state's natural assets to grow the outdoor recreation economy. 

AAC: Why would you say outdoor recreation is important in general?

KA: There are tons of benefits, not just for quality of life. We began to see that when the Bureau of Economic Analysis started studying the impact of outdoor recreation on our nation’s economy. The BEA report found benefits for areas with high outdoor recreation—like business attraction, workforce retention, public health and wellness, getting kids outside and off screens, and the conservation of our natural assets. A robust outdoor recreation industry isn’t just nice to have, it's necessary and deeply impactful.

AAC: Can you go into more specifics about AR OREC’s work? 

KA: There are two parts of the state that we serve. First, our industry partners: bike shops, boat manufacturers, river guides, duck lodges, outfitters, technology companies in the outdoors, any kind of outdoor recreation company you can think of. We help them access resources to grow, help them understand their barriers to growth, and help them overcome those barriers.

For example, we met recently with a group of marinas whose parking lots and launch ramps have been flooding a lot this year, so they can’t park or launch their boats. We’re helping them get funding earmarked to build high water launch ramps. This sets us apart from Fish and Wildlife, in that we are helping our outdoor rec industry, with barriers to their success, to in turn help them get more people outside. 

Second, our community partners: towns, counties, and advocacy groups that are hoping to support the growth and access to outdoor recreation. We help them understand the great benefits of outdoor rec on a local economy, and we help them access grants, resources, and other funding so they have more ability to leverage their natural assets and build infrastructure so that they can attract visitors and outdoor recreationists. 

Our main function is 1) connection and collaboration, or getting these groups connected to resources; and 2) promotion and awareness, by promoting and blasting about the outdoor opportunities in AR in general, and what our corporate partners are accomplishing. 

AAC: Tell us about the boom of mountain biking that has happened in Bentonville, AR, and how that story can be a model for creating economic impact through recreation?

KA: Bentonville is the home of the Waltons, who started Walmart. Tom and Steuart Walton are very personally interested in the outdoors in AR, and have utilized the Walton Family Foundation to invest in northwest Arkansas, especially in terms of outdoor recreation opportunities, in order to see NW AR thrive. 

In 2006, they started building mountain bike trails. This was not an overnight boom, 2006 to 2023 is a long time. But they started building a few miles of trail here and there. It was a combination of word of mouth, a little bit of promotion, and over time more and more people started riding, and in turn more trails got built. The Waltons have now created 600 miles of mountain bike trail in NW Arkansas, and over 1,200 miles state wide. The secret sauce in my opinion was that they were very intentional about creating a lot of beginner trails, in addition to the advanced more technical ones. 

You could replicate this model across any kind of outdoor recreation activity. For example, there is still a lot of undeveloped rock in Arkansas, and now the Waltons have been investing in slowly developing rock climbs. As the popularity of the area grows, there will be more investment in infrastructure, and in turn, the area will be able to sustainably handle more climbers. It’s sort of a chicken and the egg kind of scenario, since you need the infrastructure for people to come in the first place, but you likewise need climbers to show interest before you invest in infrastructure. 

Recreationalists, especially climbers, care very deeply about climate and conservation and keeping our wild places wild—so the good thing about creating more climbing infrastructure is that it will not only help the local tax base, but climbers in particular will help maintain the integrity of a place and help ensure its wild places stay that way.

AAC: Are there any obstacles facing recreationists or the AR OREC? 

KA: Rather than obstacles, I would say there is opportunity. There is especially the opportunity to craft a really good land-use model for climbers and recreationists to interact with public land in a sustainable way. It is better to do it on the front end, instead of seeing a boom in climbing and then creating the plan. So there is more of an opportunity to work with the National Forest Service, for example, building better relationships with them, and working together on permitting and increased access. For us, our primary and overarching challenge is that there is not enough access to the outdoors, and the more that we can get sustainable access and new routes, the more we can grow this infrastructure and support that access. And all of this will help demonstrate the benefits of opening up access, which hopefully will head off any land-use conflicts that might arise. 

AAC: Most climbers are aware of 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell. How do recreation-focused events like that impact rural economies?

KA: I don’t have the hard numbers, but those events can generate millions of dollars into a local economy. And yes, they occur once or twice a year, but that's still a lot of money that's flowing that wouldn’t be there otherwise. You have to have some level of infrastructure to have those events, but those events also show the need for increased infrastructure at the same time. We help fund a lot of events because it helps shine a greater light on existing opportunities. 

AAC: How would you pitch Arkansas as a destination to visit? 

KA: Arkansas has long been known as The Natural State for a reason—from our scenic views to countless outdoor recreation opportunities ranging from hiking, biking, and floating, to camping, motorcycling, and even hang-gliding. People have claimed we are the mountain biking capital of the world, as well as the trout capital of the world. And we are home to the first national river. But in addition to an incredible amount of hidden gems and natural resources, the people of Arkansas are incredibly welcoming. If you ask anyone, 9 out of 10 times they participate in outdoor activities, and since we pride ourselves on hospitality, we love to help each other out, and connect and introduce visitors to people in the community. Anytime we get visitors they always say it feels like family here. So not only is the climbing and other recreation in Arkansas an undervalued hidden gem, there is also this incredibly welcoming community here that a lot of people find very compelling. 

AAC: Finally, why should climbers partner with other recreationists? How could working with an Office of Outdoor Recreation benefit climbers?

KA: The more people you get outside the more likely they are to conserve land and care about protecting natural spaces. We all have a common goal in mind in getting outdoors and enjoying nature, the more we work together the more we can achieve that. 

There’s an African proverb I like to think about: “If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.” Ultimately, we are all consumptive users of the outdoors, so we need to contribute to conserving it by partnering together.