Page 18 - Georgia Forestry - Issue 4 - Fall 2019

By Brady Hummel
Sharing the value and importance
of working forests in metro Atlanta
A tlanta is a landscape of tall buildings, flashing tail- lights, pedestrians and scooters on the sidewalks. In many places, there are trees planted along those sidewalks, but none like the longleaf pine stands that are a constant visible feature of rural Georgia. While rural counties outnumber urban counties in Georgia,1 the majority of the state’s population lives in the 29-county metro Atlanta area.2 And that population is projected to boom, as metro Atlanta has the fourth-fastest growing population in the country.3 Many of those people don’t often get outside of the metro area to be able to see and appreciate our state’s working forests. Those unseen forests impact their survival, comfort and
progress every day.
Featured here are three champions of working forests providing
eye-opening experiences for people in metro Atlanta — showing how important and powerful our forests are in our everyday lives, no matter the county in which we live.
Nature’s Enlightened Classroom
When Tom Howick talks about the 127 acres of beautiful forest, wetland and river habitat at the Chattahoochee Nature Center (CNC), you get the sense the he’s most likely explored every one of them. He speaks about the nature center like a sanctu- ary, familiar yet always offering new experiences. “I’m all about sitting spots in the forest where you can go out and get quiet and contemplate,” he said. “I think it’s like a symphony sometimes when it’s blowing through the certain times of seasons. I love being in nature like that.”
16 | GEORGIA FORESTRY
URBAN CHAMPIONS