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In partnership with the Lyndhurst Foundation and the University of the South’s Sewanee Environmental Institute, The Land Trust for Tennessee recently completed a landmark conservation plan for the South Cumberland region. The planning area encompassed almost 4 million acres in Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. Over 30 partner organizations were brought together through a series of meetings and workshops held across the South Cumberland region to share their visions and ideas for regional conservation.

The primary goals of the planning effort were to:

1. Describe the global importance of the South Cumberland region’s natural heritage and cultural significance;

2. Establish a set of locally developed conservation priorities and overarching strategies for achieving landscape scale conservation results; and

3. Produce a document that fosters improved communications between conservation organizations and local stakeholder groups to develop a shared vision for protecting a way of life in the South

The biologically rich hardwood forests of the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia are among the highest conservation-value forests remaining in North America today. Defining the western extent of the Southern Appalachian Mountain region, the Cumberland Plateau provides critical Neotropical migrant songbird habitat and supports one of the most biologically diverse freshwater systems found in North America. The region is also widely recognized as a global biodiversity hotspot for amphibians, land snails, cave fauna, and vascular plant communities.

The distinct Southern culture that developed in this region has been shaped and bounded by the land itself, which historically has not only played a central role in plateau traditions and folklore, but has also been the economic backbone of the region, whether for coal and timber extraction, or, more so today, recreation and tourism. The land and the forests are, therefore, the region’s most important natural, cultural, and economic assets, and preservation of the cultural heritage is interwoven with ecological conservation and the sustainable use of these natural resources.

The exceptional biodiversity coupled with rich cultural history make the South Cumberland region one of the most unique and treasured landscapes in the United States. Today, the South Cumberland region and its communities are at a crossroads. Hundreds of thousands of acres of forestland are currently for sale or planned for sale in the next few years. These tracts are part of some of the largest privately-owned contiguous forest areas in the eastern United States. Poorly planned second-home developments are a leading contributor to the subdivision of these tracts, which is resulting in landscape-scale fragmentation and loss of natural habitat, increased spread of exotic species, and reduced recreation and hunting opportunities. Fewer working forests and impacts to tourism will have negative consequences for local economies.

Despite these challenges, opportunities to sustain the many benefits the forests of the South Cumberland region remain. The result of over 80 years of land conservation in the South Cumberland region is a scattered collection of heavily used public landholdings and private conservation easements. Solely, these lands are not large enough to meet the increasing demands placed on today’s forests and natural areas. In addition, many of these lands lack connectivity with other protected lands, which is critical for wildlife movement and other ecosystem processes. Therefore, expanding and linking existing protected lands in the South Cumberland region to create an ecologically functional landscape that simultaneously preserves important cultural and economic values is a goal of local, regional, and national interest.

As a result of the planning process, three overarching strategies for the entire region emerged as the most important for the conservation community:

1. Define long-term goals for regional conservation;
2. Increase national attention on the region to attract more funding for conservation; and
3. Collaborate with local communities to better incorporate their concerns and needs into future conservation planning efforts.