Many of the hardwood forests in the Greater Cumberland Plateau -- spanning Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama -- remain largely wild. These lush, dense woods are home to foxes, songbirds and the eastern cougar. But growing demand for paper products and coal are increasing the pressure to level this forested landscape by clearcutting its trees and demolishing its mountaintops.

In 2004, BioGems Defenders successfully pressured the paper giant Bowater -- the largest landowner on the Cumberland Plateau -- to stop clearcutting hardwood forests and converting them into pine plantations. But despite this progress, the logging and mining industries still pose serious threats to the region. And the Greater Cumberland Plateau area now faces a new danger from mountaintop removal coal mining, a horribly destructive practice that blows off the tops of mountains to access coal, leaving the debris to fill up streambeds.

Already, more than 1,200 miles of streams in Appalachia have been destroyed by mountaintop removal, and community water supplies are polluted with toxic waste.