Vision

The Southern Appalachian hardwood forest is one of the most biologically diverse temperate ecosystems on earth. The ridge lines went white in June when the chestnuts bloomed. Ruffed grouse drummed on fallen logs in young forest kept open by fire. Brook trout held in every cold-water stream.

In Knoxville, a city built itself on a river bluff — opera houses, universities, stone commercial blocks along Gay Street, neighborhoods where the craftsmanship is in the mortar joints and the window sash proportions. People who knew the names of things and insisted on a standard in a place where no one required it of them.

The chestnuts are mostly gone now. The grouse have grown quiet. Some of those buildings are long gone, others endangered. Many of the trades that built them have disappeared.

Highcountry Conservation Trust is a federally recognized not for profit dedicated to the promotion, preservation, and ecological restoration of East Tennessee's culture, craft, and natural environment through commerce, education, and hospitality.