Director’s Page

Special thanks to Cecile and Dwayne Thompson for hosting the "Wild West" fundraiser party.

Measuring the success of a non profit organization can be done in different ways: acres of critical habitat saved, funding, media coverage, etc. My measuring stick is community involvement. The Chattooga Conservancy is a grassroots conservation organization that depends on participation. One way to measure success is to simply count how many volunteers show up when we call for help. We find an amazing record of community involvement as we look back on our activities since the Conservancy was founded in 1991.

In summer of 1995, we organized a vigil to protest the largest timber sale in the Chattooga River watershed since the turn of the century. The Tuckaluge Timber Sale was an 8 million board foot gift to the timber industry masked in by the Forest Service in the guise of “ecosystem management.” The Tuckaluge Sale required 9.1 miles of road building into what was known as the old Rabun Bald Roadless Area. The Forest Service had already built as many roads into the area as possible in order to disqualify it for “roadless” designation. The vigil on Rabun Bald overlooked the proposed timber sale, and lasted 34 days and involved over 300 people. Such pressure was brought to bear on the Forest Service by the protest that they finally backed off of the sale.

Again, in 1996, the Chattooga Conservancy mounted a campaign of citizen involvement aimed at Forest Service reform to protect roadless areas and old growth forests. We collected over 20,000 signatures on a petition asking the Forest Service to revise Forest Management Plans based on principles of sound science for protecting resources, such as roadless areas and old growth. In order to use the petition to full advantage we embarked on a high profile, 200-mile trek to deliver the petition to the Forest Service’s Regional Office in Atlanta. The journey began on top of Whiteside Mountain at the headwaters of the Chattooga River watershed, and started with a steep descent down the 2,000 foot face of Whiteside to the valley below. Then, the petition was carried on horseback, mountain bike, kayak and canoe down through the Chattooga River watershed, and relayed via logging truck over to the headwaters of the Chattahoochee River at Helen, Georgia. From Helen, the petition was transported by canoe down the Chattahoochee to downtown Atlanta, and delivered to the Forest Service by couriers on road bikes. When the petition was unrolled, it stretched for a full city block. The journey took ten days and garnered much media and public education. There is no doubt that the momentum to save roadless areas and old growth forest was bolstered by the volunteers who helped make the trek to Atlanta to deliver the petition.

One of our most impressive volunteer efforts happened just this year, which you will read about in this Chattooga Quarterly ("Rare Chattooga Canoe Recovered"). This project involved hundreds of volunteers in recovering an old dugout canoe found in the Chattooga River below Earls Ford. Archaeologists have determined this find to be one of the most significant cultural artifacts ever discovered in the Savannah River drainage.

More recently we held a fund raiser on Lake Burton at the home of one of our board members. The “Wild West” party gave supporters of the Conservancy a chance to have a great time and donate to our work. Guests played poker, blackjack and roulette with all proceeds tagged as contributions to the Conservancy. The party required over 40 volunteers as dealers, bartenders, cooks, and hosts. We raised significant funding for our programs, with all credit due to volunteers.

This year, our program of work will call on volunteers and new recruits to establish a greenway on Stekoa Creek. We are also planning a major campaign involving the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the Environmental Protection Agency, Rabun County, and the City of Clayton; our goal: clean up Stekoa Creek! Volunteers are already signing up for stream monitoring, legal services, and active involvement in the project.

Looking back on these successes and to the future, I have a great feeling of pride and accomplishment in being a part of the Chattooga Conservancy. I am well aware of the fact that the reason for our success is based on solid dedication to true conservation, and our volunteers who are willing to contribute to that cause. I am grateful for a dedicated staff, a solid board of directors, our loyal membership, and the hundreds of volunteers who make the Chattooga Conservancy one of the best grassroots organizations in the nation. Thanks to all.