Our friends at Heartwood are hosting a gathering in KY, drop in if you are in the area...
We invite you to the 19th annual Heartwood Forest Council, to be held Memorial
Day weekend, May 22-25, 2009, at Camp McKee near the Red River Gorge in
Appalachian Kentucky. The theme of this year's Forest Council is Defending
the Earth, Sustaining Ourselves.
Camp McKee, is just seven miles
south of Mt. Sterling, with over 800 acres of forests and trails, and a large
lake. Camp McKee is adjacent to Pilot Knob
State Nature Preserve and just a stone’s throw from the beautiful and unique
Red
River Gorge. As you may know, we originally planned to hold this year’s
Forest Council at Camp Blanton near Harlan KY, in conjunction with Mountain
Justice Summer Camp, but coal interests in Harlan persuaded the Camp management
to void our agreement. You can read more about what happened in the Lexington
Herald-Leader here and here.
What is
the Heartwood Forest Council?
The Heartwood Forest Council is the
largest annual gathering of citizens from across the Eastern, Midwestern, and
Southern United States who care about the health and well being of our nation's
forests. This will be the fourth time this event has taken place in Kentucky,
the first being at Cathedral Domain in 1993. 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 also 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 whole cycle of coal from extraction, processing and transport
to combustion and disposal of wastes, with a special focus on ending the ongoing
tragedy of mountaintop removal. We will look at the health and well being of our
region's forests and waters, and address a new host of threats - from global
warming to the proliferation of biomass combustion plants and agrofuels which
convert forests and food into electric power and fuel.
Equally important,
we will address how we can sustain ourselves and each other in this time of
great challenges and threats to the planet we call home. Together we will
identify ways to reduce stress and increase a sense of personal well being in a
life of activism. We will share knowledge about how to work together to protect
our neighborhoods, our communities, and our planet. You can view the program
schedule and learn about the featured
presenters on the Heartwood website, http://www.heartwood.org.
The Forest
Council will begin the afternoon of Friday, May 22, and continue through
mid-day, Monday, May 25 (Memorial Day). The program will
consist of three days of workshops, discussions, keynote speakers, and field
trips -- interspersed with ample social time, leisure, lively local music,
dancing and great food (sourced locally and from organic sources to the greatest
extent possible, and lovingly prepared). The Forest Council will be family
friendly - kids of all ages are encouraged to attend.
This year’s
Heartwood Forest Council will immediately follow the week-long Mountain Justice
Summer Camp, being held at the Appalachian South Folklife Center in
Pipestem, West Virginia. We encourage you to attend Mountain Justice Summer Camp
and to participate in the hands on education and training aimed at forever
ending the tragedy of mountaintop removal coal mining, and to then join
Heartwood for the culmination of a truly inspiring and transformative week in
Central Appalachia.
We also invite you to attend Mountain Aid 2009, a
concert to raise awareness about and help end mountaintop removal coal-mining,
June 19-20 at Shakori Hills in Chatham County, North Carolina. http://mbdfilms.powweb.com/mtnaid/index.html
What is
Heartwood?
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. Heartwood has a nearly twenty year
track record of bringing people together to share information, coordinate
efforts and devise a common approach -- not just to the challenges we face but
perhaps more importantly to the positive future that inspires the work we
do.
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