​2022 has been an important year for us in reaching our goals to engage elected officials with public lands advocacy.  We've  worked on both the state and federal levels, talking directly to representatives and key staff in Nashville and Washington DC.
As the Bridgestone-Firestone Wilderness controversy took shape, we have been working with State Senator Heidi Campbell on the Senate Energy, Agriculture, and Natural Resources Committee. We presented to the committee on state forests and Bridgestone in February on issues with state forests, Bridgestone, and the complexities of restoration ecology.  We’re working with Senator Campbell on coming up with some alternatives for state lands and for accountability reform of TWRA.  The Senate is increasingly troubled by the lack of transparency and accountability by this agency.  As one Senator has privately said, TWRA should never have been “turned loose” from meaningful oversight by the Legislature the way it has since the 1970’s.   


Bringing Accountability to TWRA

The Tennessee Natural Resources Agency (TWRA) has been operating for half a century with little transparency and accountability to the degree that it until now has not even had publicly available comprehensive maps of some of the lands that it owns outright or manages.  Its timber sale and mineral lease program operates largely in secret.  One of the things resulting from the Bridgestone issue has been putting a spotlight on TWRA where it had not been before. 
We have been in close contact with several local and state elected officials to assist them in addressing how to take on the agency.  We have convened one physical meeting with White County officials to strategize and identify important points of reform. The result has included a couple of bills introduced in the Senate.  While Senator Heidi Campbell’s bill that would strip the agency’s ability to generate income from timber sales  did not pass,  our testimony before the Senate Ag Committee suggesting that TWRA’s timber sale program have the same level of transparency as those of the State Forest Commissions  resulted in the introduction of a bill shortly thereafter that did. (https://spartalive.com/stories/senator-bailey-passes-two-bills-regarding-twra,43328)  

Changing of the Guard?

Our coalition's work continued to reverberate through the year.  Shining a light on TWRA's lack of transparency awakened a legislature from decades of deference to this agency, with the Ag Committees in particular demanding more lines of communication and professionalism.  Apparently, leadership, being used to keeping its own counsel, did not adapt, and the top four of the agency was fired in a general housecleaning 

Outings!

From the top of Big Frog Mountain to the fossil deposits of the lower Tennessee Valley, we have had a great selection of outings this year.  In February we had one of our "issues outings" with a great turnout of locals for a tour of the Bridgestone Wilderness.  Led by naturalist John Johnson, we mixed great scenery with a discussion of the complex issues that are facing Bridgestone and our state lands.  
In May, we had a "field research" day in the mists of Big Frog Mountain, surveying a remnant old growth black cherry/hickory forest community. It was a magical day with quite a bit of atmosphere!

In September TN Heartwooders volunteered with the annual Whigg Meadow Migratory Bird Banding Station in the Cherokee National Forest, spending the weekend capturing, inventorying, banding, and releasing birds as they pass through to South America. 
In October, Geologist Jim Hunt led us up the strata of Elder Mountain for a tour way back in time for a look at the geologic history of the Cumberland Plateau, with fossils galore.

 

Bringing Reform to our National Forests

National Forest protection is the oldest part of our mission, with our work extending far past the Cherokee and the Land Between the Lakes NRA.  For decades we have been reaching out to grassroots citizens and local groups to provide assistance to those who want to advocate for and protect our public lands.  Across the East, from Illinois to Georgia and beyond, we see the same problems with the how our forests are managed:  a continued subsidized timber program justified by questionable "forest health and restoration" rationales.  
Passed by Congress in 2003, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act may have been well-intentioned, but the results on the ground have been anything but promising.  In addition to our monitoring of National Forest project over the last two decades in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, we have gathered more examples of misguided "ecological-logging" of our public lands across the East from our partner groups to give a comprehensive look at the state of NF management.  Across the East we find "restoration" logging that has brought about erosion, loss of biodiversity, persistent logging road impacts, and the expansion of invasive plants. This summer we spent two days with the support of the John Muir Project and the Dogwood Alliance in giving many in Congress their first look at what is actually happening on eastern National Forests.  Focusing on members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees (under which the Forest Service operates) we spoke with 45 congressional offices, including a full fledged briefing with staffers from 18 Congress people.  We have a 30 minute version of our presentation available here. We hope that this is a first step in bringing reform and accountability to the National Forest System.

Speaking and Discoing at APIEL

For eleven years, the Appalachian Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (APIEL) has brought together environmental activists and the legal profession together for a weekend of presentations and discussion at the University of Tennessee School of Law.  We have been proud to present for five of these years and were thrilled to see the revival of an in-person conference October 1 after a couple of years of COVID-limitations.  Lots of new connections, and a renewal of old ones- thanks to help from APIEL founder Perrin de Jong of the Center for Biological Diversity.  We spoke twice that day.  The first was on the "Three R's" concerning problems on the ground with National Forest management, similar to our presentation here. Later that day we joined a panel on strategies for winning.  
One of the other things that we like to do at Tennessee Heartwood is to participate in the arts- so much so that we brought our band Up the Dose to provide the evening's entertainment with our rock, soul, and disco revue. 

Helping Keep APIEL Alive

We are honored to have been asked to served on an advisory board to the UTK Law School to provide help in organizing next year's APIEL.  APIEL is truly the only symposium of its kind in our region and we want to assist in keeping it a space for attorneys, students, and activists to come together to discuss environmental law and the many ways it affects our environment and society.