The Chattooga Conservancy is a grassroots organization that formed in 1991 through the shared vision of a group of citizens who began contesting the Forest Service`s intensive logging and road-building program in the Chattooga watershed`s national forests. The Chattooga River watershed is 70% public land and is composed of approximately 200,000 acres that include portions of the Nantahala, Sumter and Chattahoochee National Forests in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, respectively.



While working as volunteers, the group rallied around their own plan that called for protecting and restoring the native ecosystem while managing the watershed`s separate national forests as a single ecological unit across state lines. This was one of the first watershed-scale restoration plans in the East. The organization gained increasing momentum and support such that in 1995 the Conservancy opened an office in Clayton, Georgia and hired staff. Since this time the Chattooga Conservancy has developed many programs including demonstration and collaborative projects, oversight of state and federal agencies concerning environmental laws, advocacy in public policy forums, and public education initiatives.