You've found the place for folks who love Tennessee's public lands.  We are a  501c3 nonprofit working to protect and preserve our best wild places.  From the Land Between the Lakes to the Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee Heartwood advocates for the wild.  Visit our site to learn more about what we do, from outdoors excursions to legal advocacy, we're always on the trail!

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Victory at Tumbling Creek!!
Forest Service Withdraws Dinkey Timber Sale

​The culmination of several years of our work to protect Tumbling Creek-the Dinkey timber sale has been withdrawn! This is why we are here- on the ground, focused watchdogging and advocacy. And that focus includes staying to play a long game when necessary. This sale was first announced in early 2014, and since then, there has been a lot of field work, research, meetings, and legal work. But what made the difference was our long-term monitoring of some of the other timber sales that have happened in the Cherokee, sales with logging similar to what would have happened at Tumbling Creek if the sale had gone through. We did a lot of hiking, photographing, surveying, and videoing, and the results showed that there is a pattern of declining forest health in these sales. It is this evidence that the courts would have found compelling if the agency had not pulled the plug on this case. 
So stopping the Tumbling Creek/Dinkey sale is important, but it has launched a whole other body of work that will be important to bringing long-term change to the Cherokee National Forest, work that has only just begun.
Sheryl and I thank everyone who has supported Tennessee Heartwood. This is the fruit of your support. It's time for a shout out to all of our volunteers at Riverbend that have raised funds to make this work possible, and to Sam Evans of the Southern Environmental Law Center and awesome attorney Shelby Ward for getting this case to court.....  MORE