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 Blanketing the rugged ridge lines and river-carved valleys of the Cumberland Plateau -- extending from West Virginia and Kentucky through Tennessee to Alabama -- is a remote forest ecosystem teeming with life. Here, a soaring canopy of oak, hickory, black gum, red maple and other hardwoods arches protectively over deer, fox and rivers rushing with more than 230 fish species. Many rare species still make their way through the blueberry bushes, wild azalea and mountain laurel that carpet this primeval refuge.
Right alongside these wild woods, however, paper companies such as Kimberly-Clark, Bowater, Mead-Westvaco, Weyerhaeuser and American Packaging are harvesting or buying timber and paper pulp made from millions of acres of this hardwood forest in order to manufacture toilet paper, newsprint and office paper. Clearcutting these forests and replacing them with vast plantations of non-native pine has destroyed crucial habitat and food sources, wiping out the region's species and devastating the local populations of songbirds.
To protect this pocket of intact woods from further damage, we are encouraging corporate and individual consumers to purchase paper products that do not endanger the forest, and we are joining with local and national partners to pressure paper manufacturers to withdraw their operations from the area.
With your help we have had tremendous success reaching an historic agreement with Bowater, Inc., the largest paper manufacturer operating on the Plateau to end conversion to pine plantations and improve overall forestry practices.
Click here more information on the historic agreement.
Click here for Dogwood Alliance's report on Bowater's steps to implement the agreement and for more information on how the agreement has worked to provide on the ground protection for the Cumberland Plateau.
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