A 4,000-acre chunk of Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau now is protected near the Franklin-Marion county line.
The land includes more than 8 miles of streams in the Crow Creek Valley and other vital habitat for endangered species that live just north of the Alabama border.
The project also protects local mining jobs for the next 50 years and connects 25,000 acres of forest and wildlife corridor, according to officials with The Conservation Fund and The Land Trust for Tennessee, the nonprofit organizations that partnered on the effort with the state.
“The South Cumberland State Park area is unique in many ways,” Brock Hill, deputy commissioner for state parks and conservation, said in a statement. “By providing protection of the threatened species and preserving one of Tennessee’s most scenic lands, Tennessee State Parks will preserve and protect this wild place forever.”
The protected 4,061 acres lie along the eastern side of the Crow Creek Valley above the tiny town of Sherwood, Tenn. Sherwood is home to about 500 people and Sherwood Mining Co., the town’s longtime limestone mining operation that harks back to the days when the community was three times its present size.