Hidden within northeastern Tennessee’s Skinner Mountain Forest is a dramatic landscape — including gorges, cliffs, waterfalls and an intricate maze of caves that shelter the Indiana bat, which relies on the warm, humid caves for survival during winter months. But it’s not just bats that depend on this stretch of mature hardwoods that fronts the Obey River. A variety of mussels, plants and migratory songbirds — some of which are endangered or in decline — call the area home.

Skinner Mountain Forest’s proximity to hundreds of thousands of acres of protected state and federal land benefits recreationists as well, providing increased opportunities for hiking, hunting and wildlife viewing. Tourism-related expenditures in the two counties where the forest is located generated $20 million last year. This working forest also sustains hundreds of timber-related jobs, contributing nearly $5 million to the local economy annually.

Our Role

When the nearly 14,800-acre Skinner Mountain Forest was put up for sale, its future became uncertain. The Conservation Fund and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) began working together to find a way to protect the property in perpetuity. Through our Working Forests program, we purchased Skinner Mountain Forest in 2017 as a stopgap until public and private funding could be secured to permanently conserve the property.

We transferred 3,041 acres to TWRA in 2019 and protected the remaining 11,723 acres under a conservation easement in 2021. Now part of the Skinner Mountain Wildlife Management area, the newly conserved forest will remain sustainably managed for timber production while preserving biodiverse habitat and providing new public recreational access.

Why This Project Matters

Skinner Mountain Forest illustrates one of the greatest conservation challenges of our time — the widespread loss of working forests. An astounding 45 million acres of working forests across the U.S. are at risk of development and fragmentation over the next 15 years. The lifeblood of local economies, working forests also sustain vulnerable wildlife and give us opportunities to experience the natural beauty of places such as the Cumberland Plateau.