Our Mission
Kentucky Heartwood seeks to protect and restore the integrity, stability, and beauty of Kentucky’s native forests and biotic communities through research, education, advocacy, and community engagement.
Donate online or via postal mail
Kentucky Heartwood runs on a very small budget. By donating and becoming a member, you are helping protect some of the most incredible forests in the world.
The millions of creatures, from the fungi to the treetops thank you!
Kentucky Heartwood is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Donations are tax deductible.
Recurring monthly donations are available and appreciated.
Choose the subscribe option to donate monthly, or use the Donate button to give a one-time donation.
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If you prefer to donate via postal mail, you can download our membership form by clicking here.
Mail donation and membership form to Kentucky Heartwood P.O. Box 1486 Berea, KY 40403.
Protect globally significant forests and native communities!
In 2020, Kentucky Heartwood continued to advocate for unique ecosystems across the Daniel Boone National Forest.
Read on to see what opportunities and challenges we anticipate for 2021!
Please consider making a year-end donation to help us continue this essential work!
Thank you!
In 2020, Kentucky Heartwood continued to advocate for unique ecosystems across the Daniel Boone National Forest.
Read on to see what opportunities and challenges we anticipate for 2021!
Please consider making a year-end donation to help us continue this essential work!
Thank you!
Speak up for the Red River Gorge!
TAKE ACTION!
New management plans for the Red River Gorge
Virtual Public Meeting
Tuesday, November 10, 2020
5 - 6:30 pm
Click here for details and instructions on how to join the meeting
New management plans for the Red River Gorge
Virtual Public Meeting
Tuesday, November 10, 2020
5 - 6:30 pm
Click here for details and instructions on how to join the meeting
Report Damages in the Red River Gorge
ORV damage observed in the Red River Gorge in 2008
Click on the image above, or click here to report damages that you have observed in the Red River Gorge
Jellico management planning begins. Speak up for the Jellico mountains!
A massive and gorgeous dominant white oak in an unprotected secondary old-growth forest in the Jellico area.
TAKE ACTION! Join the virtual public meeting about the Jellico area
on Tuesday, October 13, 2020 from 5-6:30 pm. Click here for details and instructions on how to join the meeting.
on Tuesday, October 13, 2020 from 5-6:30 pm. Click here for details and instructions on how to join the meeting.
Ashley and Akadia
Welcome, Ashley Lipscomb!
Kentucky Heartwood is excited to announce that we have hired Ashley Lipscomb to serve as our new Director! We are thrilled to have her on staff, and look forward to everyone meeting her.
As Ashley steps into her new role, we have also promoted two other staff members to new roles. Jim Scheff, our Director since 2008 has stepped into his new role as Staff Ecologist (a lifelong dream of his!), and Tress La'Ree has been promoted from Administrative Associate to Administrator, reflecting her high level of service and leadership within the organization. See everyone's updated info on our Staff page here.
Here's a little more about Ashley:
Ashley joined Kentucky Heartwood as the Director in October 2020. She brings eleven years of forest watch experience learned in the wilds of the Northern Rockies. She started as a volunteer and became the Membership and Development Director for a small, grassroots group called Friends of the Clearwater. In her spare time, she co-led the Palouse Broadband of the Great Old Broads for Wilderness. Ashley gleaned many skills and strategies from some of the best forest activists in Idaho and looks forward to protecting biologically significant public lands in Kentucky through citizen engagement.
Ashley received her Associate of Science in Ecotourism and Adventure Travel from Hocking Technical College in 2009 and proceeded to earn a Bachelor of Science in Resource Recreation and Tourism from the University of Idaho in 2010. Post education, she monitored public lands across Idaho’s Clearwater Basin for ORV abuse, impacts of deforestation, and wildlife movements. Along the way, she made time to identify native flowers and swim in the cool, clear waters of the West.
At Kentucky Heartwood, Ashley is responsible for analyzing land management proposals using sound science and the law, creating communication lines with our supporters, growing a diverse membership base, grant acquisitions, and foundation relations. In her downtime, Ashley enjoys backpacking, drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, and walking her doggy named Akadia.
As Ashley steps into her new role, we have also promoted two other staff members to new roles. Jim Scheff, our Director since 2008 has stepped into his new role as Staff Ecologist (a lifelong dream of his!), and Tress La'Ree has been promoted from Administrative Associate to Administrator, reflecting her high level of service and leadership within the organization. See everyone's updated info on our Staff page here.
Here's a little more about Ashley:
Ashley joined Kentucky Heartwood as the Director in October 2020. She brings eleven years of forest watch experience learned in the wilds of the Northern Rockies. She started as a volunteer and became the Membership and Development Director for a small, grassroots group called Friends of the Clearwater. In her spare time, she co-led the Palouse Broadband of the Great Old Broads for Wilderness. Ashley gleaned many skills and strategies from some of the best forest activists in Idaho and looks forward to protecting biologically significant public lands in Kentucky through citizen engagement.
Ashley received her Associate of Science in Ecotourism and Adventure Travel from Hocking Technical College in 2009 and proceeded to earn a Bachelor of Science in Resource Recreation and Tourism from the University of Idaho in 2010. Post education, she monitored public lands across Idaho’s Clearwater Basin for ORV abuse, impacts of deforestation, and wildlife movements. Along the way, she made time to identify native flowers and swim in the cool, clear waters of the West.
At Kentucky Heartwood, Ashley is responsible for analyzing land management proposals using sound science and the law, creating communication lines with our supporters, growing a diverse membership base, grant acquisitions, and foundation relations. In her downtime, Ashley enjoys backpacking, drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, and walking her doggy named Akadia.
Summer Newsletter, August 2020
Our newsletter is available in an easy to read version, above, and as a ready to print publication, below.
Volunteer Opportunity: We could always use help spreading the word about what is happening on our public lands. So, if you know of a place that would be good to put our newsletters, please lend a hand by printing out as many as you need and distribute them where you see fit. Or, let us know how many you need and we will mail them to you. Thank you!
(Printing tips: print orientation is landscape, two sided printing - flip on short end, and collate.)
To view past editions of our newsletter click here.
| summer_2020_newsletter.pdf |
Hope for Hemlocks is a project of Kentucky Heartwood to save the Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), a tree of enormous ecological importance and breathtaking beauty. Hemlocks in the east, including Kentucky, are being decimated by an invasive insect, the hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae). Thousands of acres of hemlock forests on public and private land have already been destroyed, but this isn't the end of the story.
Join us as we use all the available tools to stop this ecological catastrophe. We need volunteers and donors and partners. We especially need your voice.
On our website, www.hopeforhemlocksky.org, you'll find the history and science of hemlocks and adelgids, alongside the resources and information needed to preserve hemlocks for generations to come.
Join us as we use all the available tools to stop this ecological catastrophe. We need volunteers and donors and partners. We especially need your voice.
On our website, www.hopeforhemlocksky.org, you'll find the history and science of hemlocks and adelgids, alongside the resources and information needed to preserve hemlocks for generations to come.
Rise & Root Rewilding Project
Rise & Root Rewilding offers single-day nature camps to give kids a taste of the wild, play games, learn the basics of ecological systems, and get in touch with their animal senses; we also host an ongoing Forest School where kids have the opportunity to build deep connections with place and one another in a safe yet challenging environment facilitated by our mentors. More information and registrations forms are here.
The top of a recent landslide on Ulysses Creek in a unit that was logged in 2012. The landslide extends about 200 feet down the slope, burying the road on Ulysses Creek.
Landslides and Wrecked Mountainsides from Logging in Daniel Boone National Forest: Kentucky Heartwood has documented multiple ongoing landslides in the Redbird District of the Daniel Boone National forest caused by logging in the Group One project in Clay and Leslie Counties. To date, we’ve identified at least 6 landslides, including two that dumped sediment into streams and one that took out about 200 feet of mountainside. All of the landslides started at “full bench” skid trails that the Forest Service allowed to be bulldozed across the mountainsides for loggers to get at the timber. We also found that the Forest Service had allowed far more of the forest to be bulldozed and scraped clear than is permitted under the Forest Plan. Read more in our Forest Blog here.
The Forest Service has proposed yet another major logging project on the Daniel Boone National Forest to wrap up 2019. But this time they won’t tell you where they're going to log.
The Forest Service wants to approve an open-ended logging project near Cave Run Lake without first identifying any specific locations where they will actually sell the timber, build roads, or perform other management.
Comments on the Blackwater project are due Friday 12-27-19 by 11:59 pm.
Click here, then scroll to bottom of blog post, for detailed directions, links, and mailing address for sending comments.
It is especially important that the Forest Service receive comments opposing their use of the “condition based management” approach. The Forest Service needs to provide a specific proposal, with specific management objectives in specific places. If they can’t provide this level of detail then they’re not ready to make an informed decision to approve and implement the project.
Forest Service proposes 3,650 acres of logging in the Redbird District of the Daniel Boone National Forest
The Forest Service is proposing to log 3,650 acres of the Redbird District of the Daniel Boone National Forest in Clay and Leslie Counties. Comments on the Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) of the South Red Bird Wildlife Enhancement Project (South Redbird project) were due Friday, December 6th, 2019.
Click here to read comments submitted by Kentucky Heartwood (pdf download); we were joined by of the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Kentucky Resources Council in these comments.
You can read comments that have been submitted by the public, here.
For more information, read our recent post in our Forest Blog here, and visit our Redbird project page here.
Click here to read comments submitted by Kentucky Heartwood (pdf download); we were joined by of the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Kentucky Resources Council in these comments.
You can read comments that have been submitted by the public, here.
For more information, read our recent post in our Forest Blog here, and visit our Redbird project page here.
The Pine Creek Forest Restoration Project (“Pine Creek project”) proposes a wide range of vegetation management activities across 45,700 acres of the Daniel Boone National Forest in Laurel, Rockcastle, and Pulaski Counties, Kentucky.
This complicated project has the potential to benefit some parts of forest by implementing well-thought-out restoration efforts, while degrading other areas through heavy-handed and unneeded logging operations.
Click here, or on the image above, for more information.
This complicated project has the potential to benefit some parts of forest by implementing well-thought-out restoration efforts, while degrading other areas through heavy-handed and unneeded logging operations.
Click here, or on the image above, for more information.
14th Annual Kentucky Heartwood Music Festival
Thanks to everyone for a great festival!
Congratulations to the winners of the music competitions!
8-12 years olds
1st Phoebe White
2nd Sophie Dufour
3rd Margaret Wilkerson
13-18 year olds
1st Charity Gilbert
2nd Katrin Wilson
3rd Emily Reed
Congratulations to the winners of the music competitions!
8-12 years olds
1st Phoebe White
2nd Sophie Dufour
3rd Margaret Wilkerson
13-18 year olds
1st Charity Gilbert
2nd Katrin Wilson
3rd Emily Reed
Forest Service proposes to weaken protections for endangered bats to increase logging on Daniel Boone National Forest. Comments due by April 15
The U.S. Forest Service is proposing to reduce protections for endangered bats in an effort to increase logging on the Daniel Boone National Forest. Comments on the Draft Environmental Assessment are due by Monday, April 15th.
Directions for sending comments, links to project documents, and more information here.
Directions for sending comments, links to project documents, and more information here.
Forest in Little Egypt protected from logging through citizen engagement and the NEPA process.
Forest Watch
Follow the links for more information about the following projects on the Daniel Boone National Forest:
- Forest Plan Amendment
- South Red Bird Project
- Blackwater IRMS
- Pine Creek Forest Restoration Project
- Greenwood project
- Beaver Creek
- Climax and Little Egypt
- Upper Rock Creek
We are excited to share this video with the world! Take a journey through the history of Kentucky Heartwood. Shot and edited by Sellus Wilder, and produced by Joel Dufour.
Kentucky Heartwood Challenges Major Timber Project on Kentucky’s Daniel Boone National Forest
Rare Species and Restoration Take Back Seat to Logging Plans
Read our press release, including our formal objection, by visiting our blog post for this story (scroll to bottom of the post to download the pdf of our objection).
Read our press release, including our formal objection, by visiting our blog post for this story (scroll to bottom of the post to download the pdf of our objection).
Old Growth Forest website for Kentucky
Kentucky Heartwood's project, dedicated to the past, present, and future of old-growth forests in Kentucky, featuring information, photos, and maps of a growing number of old-growth forests.
Visit and learn more about Kentucky Old Growth.
Visit and learn more about Kentucky Old Growth.
We Saved Pisgah Bay!
After more than a year of hard work, Kentucky Heartwood and our allies with the Coalition to Preserve Land Between the Lakes succeeded in convincing the Forest Service to withdraw the Pisgah Bay Project and more than 4,000 acres of commercial logging!
Click here to learn more.
Click here to learn more.
Did you know that the third oldest known shortleaf pine on the planet lives in Rockcastle county, Kentucky, in the Daniel Boone National Forest? It is 322 years old (as of 2019). It stands in a forest that was proposed for logging in 2010. After a public campaign led by Kentucky Heartwood members to save Climax and Little Egypt, the logging project was withdrawn. This tree stands because people cared and stood up to protect our public forest!
Logging has begun in Upper Rock Creek
More info & pictures here,
If this upsets you as much as us, please consider becoming a member or donating to Kentucky Heartwood so that we can have the resources to effectively challenge these projects!
If this upsets you as much as us, please consider becoming a member or donating to Kentucky Heartwood so that we can have the resources to effectively challenge these projects!