Originally two thousand miles across, the great temperate broadleaf forest that once covered the eastern third of the United States represents one of only fourteen terrestrial biomes described for all of planet earth. Unfortunately, this biome is the most disturbed of them all. In our own country, 96% of our native Eastern Deciduous Forest has been cut down since European settlement. Yet, relative to the extremely diminished condition of the biome elsewhere in the world  (the other temperate forest strongholds are located in eastern China and Europe), North America, even with all of its disturbance, is nevertheless home to the most intact temperate broadleaf forest left on the planet.

What remains of our native forest in the Eastern United States provides us with the world’s last chance to save a significant representative of one of the earth’s primary vegetative communities.

To grasp the Eastern forest that grows in one's backyard as a representative of a far-flung biome, one must stand back and soak in the big picture. A few hundred years ago, the original Forest covered the Eastern continent from Maine to Florida, and from the shores of the Atlantic ocean to the Great Plains -- experiencing at its boundaries a shifting dance with prairies on its west, southern pines to its south, and boreal forest to the north. In North America, even in its diminished condition today, forest remnants boast a natural diversity of plants and animals surpassed only by the tropical rainforests. The Smokey Mountains, for instance, where the largest fragment of old-growth central hardwoods remain, boast over a 100,000 species, (not counting microbes) only a few of which are trees. Saving the native bio-diversity of American's Eastern temperate forest is one of world's highest conservation priorities, and probably the least recognized.

The temperate broadleaf forest biome is an ancient one, its origins going back over sixty million years go to the end of the dinosaur era. The last of those great reptilians walked among  magnolias and sweetgum trees, still signature trees of the temperate forests in the northern hemisphere. Throughout time, despite waves of formidable environmental challenges, the Forest has shown remarkable resilience, shrinking into fragmented islands in times of adversity, other times spreading out and forming a nearly unbroken and immense single forest spanning the continents.  One must look at the immense geography that the original Forest covered and see how it adapted to a variety of pressures over millions of years of time, in order to appreciate the conservation value and challenges the biome faces today.

The coursework and field trips offered by the Appalachian Forest School have as their foundation a holistic biome approach toward forest education that puts the biome into world context, as well as studying the natural history of its local expressions. Course content concentrates not only on forest differences in its many eco-regional expressions, but what is the same among them. Sometimes the course work will gets close-up and detailed, learning what is the hallmark significance of a particular forest location. Other times we will stand back and soak up the broad view, seeing the forest as ONE entity that makes use of a strategic palette -- its palette’s colors being the diversity of tree species the biome has at its disposal to successfully claim a piece of land as its own.

Finally, there will be field trips designed include the rhythmic natural spectacles of the Eastern wilderness – bearing witness to the Forest's rich spring wildflower displays, awe-inspiring bird and salamander migrations, and soul-shattering autumn colors. Only by seeking such intimacy with Eastern wilderness will there be sufficient advocates for the Forest, people who will link their appreciation for the biome with a natural commitment for its re-unification and preservation.

In the end, wherever destinations our field trips take us, whatever mental landscapes our ideas will lift up to touch, we will be encouraging participants to make the connections that enable them to perceive the forest before them as a representative of the One forest--whether standing among basswood and sugar maples in the northern hardwood forests of Wisconsin, wading the black gum-cypress swamplands of Louisiana, seeking shade under oak trees on a prairie savannah, exploring Poland’s old-growth forest, or humbled by the towering tulip poplars, hemlocks and rhododendrons of Eastern China.

 If we are to preserve America’s Eastern temperate forest in the time we have left to do it, the Forest needs a stronger voice among its citizenry. We need more people who are "forest-literate" in Eastern natural history and Eastern conservation challenges. 

 It is in this spirit we offer to you the following courses and field trips. These courses are excellent for citizen naturalists, and devoted conservationists who wish to advance their education with additional field experiences. We invite you to enter the Grove!