Green’s habitat studies on greentree reservoir issues earn Dunklin Award

April 3, 2019

Jim Harris

Managing Editor Arkansas Wildlife Magazine

LITTLE ROCK –Lorne Green’s work with Arkansas Game and Fish Commission greentree reservoirs through forest management earned the Warren native the George H. Dunklin Jr. Arkansas Waterfowl and Wetland Management Award, presented at the AGFC’s monthly commission meeting in March.

“I certainly feel blessed to be able to work alongside so many intelligent and dedicated people within this agency. I feel like there are so many more deserving people of receiving this award,” the AGFC habitat biologist/forester said. “I am humbled and very appreciative to have been nominated for this award, much less be selected to receive the award.”

The award is given to an individual whose actions – as exemplified by the award’s namesake, former AGFC Commissioner George Dunklin of Arkansas County – have resulted in significant benefit to the state’s waterfowl and wetlands, according to Brad Carner, AGFC Wildlife Division chief. The award was created in 2012, the year Dunklin served his seventh and final year on the Commission. Dunklin has long been a steward of conservation and management of waterfowl and wetland resources while serving in such leadership roles as national president of Ducks Unlimited, as well as a landowner and operator of private and commercial hunting operations.

Carner said of Green: “Lorne has stood out over the past two years, from the management side leading our greentree reservoir health assessments, and over forestry health inventory protection. He’s taken the lead in compiling forestry research data for each of our greentree reservoirs, which has been essential in our GTR planning.”

Carner said Green was the “driving force” in getting the greentree reservoir issues at Henry Gray Hurricane Lake Wildlife Management Area “to the forefront” in the past two years, so that the AGFC could make necessary changes to slow the browning of significant acres of trees essential to waterfowl habitat.

Green joined the AGFC in 2013 after two decades of work in the industrial forestry industry, including 17 years with Deltic Timber Corp. Green’s first role was learning the agency’s GTR assessment procedure under Martin Blaney. 

“I helped develop, with the help of others, a means to measure tree health indices within our greentree reservoirs,” he said. “Lou Housman passed away midway through this project, and for about a year and a half, I worked in both regions 1 and 2 to see these and other habitat contracts through.

“After we finished the assessments, (AGFC waterfowl program coordinator) Luke Naylor helped establish a plan of GTR assessment reviews for each WMA in the state. Our first set of reviews started in 2016 and I was leading the forestry efforts in two regions. I think all my work in two regions during a time when all this was hitting is what prompted my name getting nominated.”

Nominations from field staff are forwarded annually from regions throughout the state to a selection committee, who make the final choice. The award is not limited to past or current AGFC employees.
Born in Warren (Bradley County), Green graduated from Warren High School in 1987. He worked a year and a half at an automobile body shop, expecting that would be his career direction, he said.

“After coming home covered in sanding dust every night during this time, I decided to get an education,” he said.

That led him to Arkansas-Monticello, 16 miles east of home, where he graduated in 1993. His forestry career began with work in bottomland hardwood management at Anderson Tully Co., where 40 percent of his time was spent working as a wildlife biologist. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Deltic Timber Corp., where he worked for 17 years as a district forester managing about 80,000 acres in central Arkansas.

Joining the AGFC as a habitat biologist, Green worked six years out of the Brinkley regional office, then last November he shifted to a different region, based out of Russellville.

Green’s work with the AGFC now covers Scott Henderson Gulf Mountain, Ed Gordon Point Remove, Bell Slough, Camp Robinson, Cypress Bayou, Stone Prairie and Holland Bottoms WMAs. He also is a registered forester with the Arkansas State Board of Registered Foresters, a certified forester on a national level with the Society of American Foresters, and is currently taking online courses in ecology, mammology and ornithology to become a nationally certified wildlife biologist with the Wildlife Society.