JOIN THE ALLIANCE CONSERVING
THE NASHVILLE HIGHLAND RIM FOREST
Who We Are
Tens of thousands of concerned citizens have joined this informal Alliance to Conserve Nashville’s Highland Rim Forest. We are NOT a new organization but individual community leaders and existing non-profit organizations united by a common mission. We hope you will join too.
Enough planning… Let’s implement the plans.
Our Mission
Conserve Nashville’s Highland Rim Forest linking Radnor, Warner Parks, West Meade, Bells Bend, Beaman, and Whites Creek, protecting our land, air, waters, wildlife, scenery, and children’s future.
For more than a decade, conservation organizations have worked to secure conservation easements and new public land additions to link existing parks at: Radnor Lake State Park (1400 acres), Warner Parks (3100 acres), West Meade Hills with a publicly accessible cave and waterfall and private conservation easements, Bell’s Bend (800 acres) and Beaman Park (2,300 acres) totaling 7,500 acres in this 50,000 acre, “green infrastructure” Corridor as identified in NashvilleNext.
NashvilleNext, our City’s General Plan, and our Parks Department’s Plan to Play set out bold agendas from citizen input to “champion the environment” and the Plans’ maps delineate a 50,000 acre portion of this Forest corridor, important for our air, land, water, and wildlife. Additionally, Davidson County’s Climate Change Mitigation Action Plan 2021 cannot accomplish its carbon reduction goals if our intact forest no longer exists.
The Risk If We Don't Act
Exploding population growth, land speculation and development, and aging landownership are fragmenting our centuries-old forest into smaller parcels. New homes, asphalt drives and the resulting sterile lawns threaten our forests’ contribution to our healthy environment.
Without these productive forests, we face higher summertime temperatures, polluted streams, degraded scenery, and even compromise the very air we breathe. Trees provide essential ecosystem services to cleaning our air and reducing the risk of air quality related illnesses. Radnor Lake and other
Highland Parks will be diminished if we lose the corridor that supports these ecosystems.
The problem is the City isn’t implementing Our plans!!!!
Lack of public funding and implementation from the City of Nashville threaten our more sustainable future. But we can preserve this forest corridor and the benefits to our city. Parks are popular and the public does support this. Our most desired recreational amenities are greenways and foot paths. Foot paths are THE most economical addition for our park system. (See Plan to Play)
Creating this green infrastructure and Conserving Nashville’s Highland Rim Forest is crucial!
Thousands of acres more must be conserved to link Nashville’s Highland Rim Forest.
For Cleaner and cooler air. To save our cleanest streams.
To protect us from flooding.
For wildlife migration corridors.
To keep us healthier and safer.To protect our children’s future.
You Can Help!
Ask Mayor Cooper to immediately fund a Conceptual Master Plan.
Ask the Mayoral Candidates: Will you pledge to “Champion the Environment?” Will you Commit to Conserve Nashville’s Highland Rim Forest, a green infrastructure corridor identified in
NashvilleNext?. Will you make this a priority and Hire in the Mayor’s office, a new position to implement Plan to Play and coordinate open space/green infrastructure conservation?
The Cost to Conserve the Forest: We must Budget each year for Nashville’s Highland Rim Forest (app. $6 million per year in land conservation funding would conserve approximately 12,000 acres by 2040).
Overall Strategy
We call on the City to:
“Increase funding and expand purchase of sensitive lands and open space,” as Planned!!!
*Fulfill the NashvilleNext mission to “Champion our Environment.”
*Endow Nashville’s Open Space Fund and Land Conservation Assistance Fund for donated conservation easement expenses, purchase of development rights for conservation easements
and expansion of existing parks to protect this corridor for our air, waters, and wildlife.
A completion date should coincide with the 2040 time frame, outlined in NashvilleNext.
Zoning and Planning: Must continue to support natural and rural designations and increase protections for steep slopes and existing trees and other mechanisms.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you WANT to help? The movement grows with the diversity of talent, experience and energy offered by people just like you. Here’s a quick checklist of actions you can take to help Conserve Nashville’s Highland Rim Forest.
- Join the Alliance! All are welcome, individuals and organizations.
- Sign the petition.
- Join our email list for updates and action alerts (see below).
- Like and Follow us on Facebook
- Share this website and ask your friends and family to join us. Post pictures of the forest and tag us #615HighlandRim. We’re building a movement and want everyone in Nashville to know that our piece of the Highland Rim Forest needs protection.
- Introduce us to landowners interested in conservation
- Ask candidates for local office to promise to fulfill the already-existing plans to protect the Forest.
A conservation easement is a voluntary legal agreement between a landowner and a conservation organization or government agency. This agreement helps protect the land’s natural beauty, wildlife habitat, and other important environmental features by limiting certain types of development or land use. By establishing a conservation easement, landowners contribute to the preservation of our environment while maintaining ownership of their property, ensuring a greener and more sustainable future for generations to come.
The Alliance is simply a growing group of organizations and individuals in Nashville committed to protecting the Highland Rim Forest. It is a movement of people and organizations rallied around a common cause: protect and preserve the Forest.
The Highland Rim is a geographic term for the area in Tennessee surrounding the Central Basin. Nashville is largely surrounded by higher terrain in all directions. Geologically, the Central Basin is a dome. The Highland Rim is a cuesta surrounding the basin, and the border where the difference in elevation is sharply pronounced is an escarpment. Nashville is located in the northwestern corner of the basin.
Join Us!!!
We literally have so much ground to cover! If you are interested in being part of the movement to conserve Nashville’s Highland Rim Forest, please get in touch. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.