Join Us for this Year’s Heartwood Forest Council
You are invited to the 18th annual Heartwood Forest Council, to be held Memorial Day weekend, May 23-26 at Boy Scout Camp Oyo in the Shawnee State Forest near West Portsmouth, Ohio. The theme of this year’s Forest Council is “Burning Issues: Climate is a Forest Product.”
Each year, Heartwood partners with one or more local organizations to host the Forest Council over the Memorial Day weekend in a different state in the Heartwood region. Hosts for this year’s event include Heartwood, the Buckeye Forest Council, Save Our Shawnee Forest, Voices for the Forest, Meigs Citizens Action Now!, Protect Biodiversity in Public Forests and EarthWatch Ohio. The Heartwood Forest Council is the largest annual gathering of citizens from across the Eastern, Midwestern and Southern U.S. who care about the health and well-being of our nation’s forests. We will focus on threats to our region and to human and community health, in an atmosphere of collaboration designed to form stronger personal and organizational connections. While addressing the issues we face and celebrating the work that we do, the Forest Council offers participants an opportunity to identify lasting solutions and proven action steps that will move us as a community toward a shared vision of a healthy, just and sustainable society.
This year’s Forest Council will explore the ways we can nurture sustainable local and regional networks and a culture of cooperation and care. Together we will identify viable alternatives to the dominant economy and its toxic legacy of waste and prepare ourselves with the knowledge and tools to protect ourselves, our communities and our planet.
The program begins the afternoon of Friday, May 23, and continues through mid-day, Monday, May 26, and will be interspersed with ample social time, leisure, lively local music, dancing and great food. The Forest Council will be family friendly—kids of all ages are encouraged to attend. The conference consists of three days of workshops, discussions, keynote speakers and field trips.
TOPICS AT THIS YEAR’S HEARTWOOD FOREST COUNCIL WILL INCLUDE:
Forest Issues: public lands management, roadless and other special areas, prescribed burning on state and national forests, genetically modified trees, sustainable forestry and low impact logging, land certification, and land management strategies and opportunities including the value of non-timber forest products.
Coal, air, energy & climate issues: coal mining and processing, including mountaintop removal, room and pillar, and longwall mining, coal-fired power plants, air pollution and global climate change. We will also talk about resurgent efforts to promote nuclear power, the alternatives to fossil fuels such as wind, solar and hydropower, and the connections between forests and energy production including cellulosic ethanol and biomass.
Sustainability issues: creating viable communities and taking responsibility for our own future, localized economies, permaculture, local and regional food production and distribution, alternative energy and transportation, traditional uses of plants and their preservation, religion and environmental protection, alternatives to the corporate control of food and seed supply, and how to sustain our minds, bodies and spirits as we seek environmental justice and transformational change.
We hope you can join us. For more information contact Andy Mahler, Heartwood at 812-723-2430, andy@blueriver.net, www.heartwood.org or David Maywhoor, Buckeye Forest Council, 614-487-9290, 1-866-OH-TREES, david@buckeyeforestcouncil.org, www.buckeyeforestcouncil.org.
Heartwood is a cooperative network of grassroots groups, individuals and local businesses working to protect and sustain healthy forests and vital human communities in the nation’s heartland, from the foothills of the Appalachians to the river valleys of the Great Plains and from the Great Lakes to the Deep South.
Buckeye Forest Council (BFC) is the Ohio forest organization helping to organize the Heartwood Forest Council. Founded in 1992 as a campaign of the Student Environmental Action Coalition at Ohio State University, BFC is a membership-based, grassroots organization dedicated to protecting Ohio’s native forests and their inhabitants through education, advocacy and organizing. The BFC’s work emphasizes long-term forest preservation and low-impact recreation over logging, oil and gas drilling and other harmful activities. Forest protection efforts are focused on Ohio’s 20 state forests and the Wayne National Forest.
Interested in going, but want to carpool? Check out the Heartwood website at www.heartwood.org to connect with others interested in carpooling or call Stefanie Spear at 216-387-1609 for rides from Cleveland.