Heartwood has a proven track record of networking and community-based organizing throughout the Heartwood region. Heartwood supports and empowers individual activists, grassroots organizations, and local communities, through mutual assistance, cooperation, and the sharing of resources. Heartwood helped launch the Buckeye Forest Council (OH), Kentucky Heartwood, the Indiana Forest Alliance, The Missouri Forest Alliance, the Allegheny Defense Project (PA), and the Dogwood Alliance (southeast), among other organizations. Heartwood's two annual events, the Memorial Day Forest Council and the Fall Reunion help coordinate existing efforts and develop shared strategies in a spirit of unity and cooperation. The 16th annual Heartwood Forest Council, held in West Virginia, focused national attention on the tragedy of mountaintop removal coal mining and the destruction of Appalachian Mountain communities and ecosystems. It featured a keynote address by campaign finance reform champion, Doris Granny D Haddock: Preparing for the Post-Carbon Age.
See also Go Tell It on the Mountain, http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm, and Almost Level, West Virginia, http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm, two films by Rebecca MacNeice
In 2007, the 17th annual Heartwood Forest Council will be held in the Missouri Ozarks. Among the organizations already active in planning the event are representatives from a variety of local, regional, national and statewide groups working on food, forests, water, public health, economic development, climate, and other issues, with the Missouri Forest Alliance taking the lead in organizing the event. Among the issues that will be featured are threats to the globally significant water resources of the Ozarks, including lead mining and processing, and pollution from the region's numerous concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) especially pigs and turkeys; climate change and air pollution; and threats to forests and food supplies from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The event will also focus on the region's many positive innovations, including local and regional food networks, alternative energy and transportation projects, and community forestry. Heartwood is also revamping its web presence and exploring a wider range of interactive opportunities for activism, community building and social engagement, highlighting the best of the Heartwood region.
