
Defining Boundaries of Nashville’s Highland Rim Forest
The pressure on land development within Davidson County and the realization that respect for the wooded slopes could not be taken for granted drove the effort to organize an “Alliance” to elevate the many ways Nashville’s portion of the larger Western Highland Rim Forests serves the city. Branding it with a name and identity, and defining a boundary were key to our efforts.
The TN Wildlife Resources Agency identifies “Conservation Opportunity Areas” using a State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) to prioritize key habitats. The Western Highland Rim Forests is one such area in the 2015 SWAP. It covers multiple counties in middle TN and includes a portion of the forested hills forming the western edge of Davidson County.
An environmental database termed the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS *) provided The Nature Conservancy and TN with maps of ecosystems that prioritize those areas most prime for conservation measures. This drove the 2015 SWAP. The Southeast Blueprint released in 2023 will inform the 2025 updated SWAP plan. Because the outline of the multi-county, “Western Highland Rim Forests” (WHRF) SWAP in 2015 had not applied precision to its boundaries within Davidson County, the Alliance wanted to overlay the same SECAS data from the 2015 SWAP to those parts of Davidson where the wooded slopes occur. Our intent is to use those parameters to objectively define “Nashville’s Highland Rim Forest'' as being those portions of the greater Western Highland Rim Forests that occur within Davidson County.
The Nashville Highland Rim Forest spans two ecoregions – the Western Highland Rim and the Outer Nashville Basin. The NHRF also aligns very closely with the “Rural Transect Zone” along the western edge of Davidson County that is referenced in several of the planning documents that have been generated over the past 10 years.
We hope that the 2025 SWAP update will refine the precision of its perimeter in Davidson to match what was generated for us by Emily Granstaff, the “user support” professional with the Southern Appalachian Region of the Southeast Conservation Blueprint, in the Cookeville Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.*Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy SECAS brings together public and private organizations around a bold vision for the future of our region.
We are connecting the lands and waters of the Southeast and Caribbean to support healthy ecosystems, thriving fish and wildlife populations, and vibrant communities. With a data-driven spatial plan and an ambitious regional goal, SECAS helps accelerate conservation action in the places where it will make the biggest impac