Kentucky Heartwood

Hello friends and supporters of Kentucky Heartwood!

In September of 2022, Kentucky Heartwood filed a lawsuit challenging the Forest Service's South Red Bird Wildlife Habitat Enhancement Project, impacting 3,800 acres of the Daniel Boone National Forest. At the time of filing, this was the largest timber project proposed on the Boone in almost 20 years.

The lawsuit focused on the Forest Service’s violations of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), and the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) as well as the use of misleading data to support logging plans.

In early June of 2024, Kentucky Heartwood filed a motion for a preliminary injunction that would require the Forest Service to pause any further sales, logging, and other project-related activities in the project area. Also, in early June, both the Forest Service and Kentucky Heartwood filed motions before the Court, arguing that the Court should issue an order resolving the case or portions of the case in their favor. Despite ongoing litigation and our request for a preliminary injunction, the Forest Service continued to authorize timber sales in the project area. Logging in the Bear Creek sale was completed in early 2024, and several other sales were advertised for bidding.

In April of 2025, the Court issued Orders on Motions for Summary Judgment, Preliminary Injunction, Additional Discovery, and Record Issues. All were denied. However, the judge directed the Forest Service to provide additional materials by May 31, 2025, explaining their rationale for continuing the project despite supplemental information from KY Heartwood.

In August of 2025, Kentucky Heartwood was notified that all pre-decisional claims regarding NEPA and ESA were denied. In short, Kentucky Heartwood lost its remaining claims; the Forest Service prevailed on all issues, and the South Red Bird Project stands as planned.

After receiving notice from the court, we met with our legal counsel and they offered options for Kentucky Heartwood moving forward. Despite the case being struck from the docket, we still have the opportunity to appeal. Led by our attorneys, we plan to file an appeal and see this process down to the bitter end.

Kentucky Heartwood is asking you to offer financial support to guide us through this appeal process. We have exhausted our budget for this case, and to continue, we are looking at additional costs beyond what we have planned. This is where YOU come in!

With your support, we will continue to fight for justice for South Red Bird and all projects like it in the future. By seeing this appeal through, we have the opportunity to set a precedent with the court that could change outcomes for future lawsuits by Kentucky Heartwood or other environmental organizations like ours.

This has been a long and wild ride and we refuse back away quietly.

Dear friends,

I need your help in getting to the Mature and Old Growth Science Summit , which is being held in Washington, D.C. from March 4 – 6. This invitation-only meeting is being hosted by the U.S. Forest Service and the Society of American Foresters and is intended to complement and inform policies aimed at conserving mature and old-growth (MOG) forests on our national forest lands , including the Daniel Boone National Forest.

The summit will bring together policy-makers, scientists, and Forest Service leadership, and result in a report “highlighting themes, regional needs, areas of agreement and/or potential convergence, research gaps, and other outstanding questions.” Especially important will be the breakout sessions to discuss regionally-specific ecology and management of old forests.

Participating in this summit will be a big deal. It will give me an opportunity to raise issues and provide input at a high level and speak to the complex realities facing mature and old-growth forests in the Daniel Boone . The reality is that our mature and old-growth forests are, and will remain, threatened by prevailing Forest Service policies and I am deeply concerned that important issues of ecology and management will be ignored.

But I need your help getting there. I was only invited last week, and the cost for this trip simply isn’t in our budget. Beyond just getting there, lodging in downtown Washington, D.C. is shockingly expensive. We estimate that travel, lodging, and other associated costs will run about $2,500. The additional staff time amounts to about another $1,000 for Kentucky Heartwood. So we’re setting a fundraising goal of $3,500 to make this trip happen. And we don’t have much time to do it.

So, if you can, please make a special donation of any amount to help me get there. I genuinely believe this will give me a unique opportunity to speak up for our forests, and a level of input rarely afforded to Kentucky Heartwood.

For the forest!

Jim

Ps. Any donations we receive over our goal for this trip will go directly to funding our on-staff Attorney!