All Things Appalachia: Red Spruce Restoration

Red Spruce Restoration

with Kelly Holdbrooks,

executive director Southern Highlands Reserve,

Southern Appalachian Spruce Restoration Initiative

Thursday, December 4

6 – 7 pm

Rogow Room

Synopsis:
The Red Spruce has been in decline due to overlogging pests, and environmental changes. Learn more about this at-risk plant, its importance to the ecosystem, and coordinated efforts to halt its disappearance.

Program Description:

High above the sparkling lakes and winding mountain roads of Western North Carolina sits a small native plant garden where future forests are born. Through partnerships with federal, state, and local organizations, the nonprofit Southern Highlands Reserve has built a greenhouse facility that will be the heart of red spruce propagation for regional conservation projects, as well as an inspiring example of resource management. The facility includes a mountain bog, rain garden, and pocket pollinator gardens that can be replicated in residences and communities to prioritize native plants, mitigate stormwater runoff, and combat climate change.

Kelly will share the story of the high elevation spruce-fir forests — the second most endangered ecosystem in the United States — where red spruce trees are a struggling keystone species crucial to the survival of many plants and animals. Relics from the last ice age, spruce-fir forests are the backbone of ecotourism for the southern Blue Ridge Mountains and provide clean air and water for our region. Conservationists are banding together to restore these forests, and just as red spruce and the species they protect are stronger together, no individual effort is too small when we share a common goal.

Presenter Bio:

Kelly Holdbrooks is executive director of Southern Highlands Reserve, a nonprofit native plant garden and research center on Toxaway Mountain in western North Carolina. Over the past decade, she has built a network of conservationists and advocates for preserving the unique ecosystem of the Southern Appalachian mountains. She holds a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the College of Environment and Design at the University of Georgia and bachelor’s degrees in international studies and political science from Rhodes College.