Displaying items by tag: nancy manning

A volunteer removes invasive plants from an Oak Ridge cedar barren in March 2021 as part of a Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning effort to keep the barren in its natural prairie state. Anna Lawrence/Hellbender Press

Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning pivots to Highlander Trail as it looks back with pride on its past

OAK RIDGE —Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning is celebrating its 60th anniversary and continuing its efforts to protect both the people and public lands of Southern Appalachia.

One of its current initiatives of special note is working in concert with the Trust for Public Land to create the longest rail-to-trail corridor in Tennessee, which will run between Oneida and New River.

The organization began in the summer of 1966 after separate organizations — working to save the Obed River system from a dam and protect Great Smoky Mountains National Park — joined forces for a common purpose.

The group was officially incorporated in October that year, led by famed Oak Ridge geneticist couple Lianne Russell and William Russell.

TCWP can claim among its victories the preservation of Obed Wild and Scenic River and Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, both now part of the National Park Service system. In keeping with the group’s Oak Ridge origins, it helped preserve Oak Ridge’s North Ridge Trail, Cedar Barrens and Worthington Cemetery. 

Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning Executive Director Nancy Manning stands in a wetland in the Oak Ridge Cedar Barrens. She is cultivating a project that involves students from nearby Jefferson Middle School.  Ben Pounds/Hellbender Press

New TCWP director already helping our kids ‘Explore and Restore’

OAK RIDGE — The students looked for tiny animals, tested water samples and took careful note of plants. Their recorded observations of Oak Ridge Cedar Barrens, a state natural area, were part of their class at the adjacent Jefferson Middle School (JMS), but volunteers from many outside organizations helped them with their scientific processes. They joined the students on the side of a wetland as they walked through the tall native grasses beneath the red cedars that give the small protected area its name.

Among these volunteers was new Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning Executive Director Nancy Manning. Manning became TCWP’s chief operating agent Aug. 1 of last year, succeeding Sandra Goss after they worked together for a month. Centered in Oak Ridge, TCWP has a storied history preserving and maintaining not just the small Oak Ridge Cedar Barrens area but also Obed Wild and Scenic River and Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area. While Manning is continuing that work, she’s put a special focus on fighting “nature deficit disorder” a term credited to Richard Louv and his book Last Child in the Woods.

The phrase refers to a lack of direct experience with nature, and Louv tied such a deficit in his 2005 book to psychological disorders and obesity. So Manning conceived the “explore and restore” program, which gives students a chance to both study and maintain natural areas, and brought it with her from Texas to Tennessee.