Welcome to the Team!

Please join us as we welcome OGFN’s newest team member, Southeast Regional Manager Katherine Russell!

As the new Southeast Regional Manager, Katherine oversees growing, enhancing, and connecting the Old-Growth Forest Network in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Keep reading to learn more about our newest Regional Manager!

Katherine Russell, Southeast Regional Manager, at the Little Mulberry Park recognition ceremony.

What is your background as it relates to old-growth forest preservation?

I was born among the forests and fields of rural Georgia, and it seems that for the entirety of my life I’ve had a special affinity for trees. I remember sketching tall pines with waving dark branches and river swamps with dense cane thickets, called canebrakes, on shards of bark as a child, a piece of charred firewood for my pencil. 

I elected to study Ecology when I went north to the University of Georgia, taking several electives in natural history (including dendrology), and worked a series of jobs in forest ecology after graduation. I've contributed to research on the restoration of live oak on the Georgia coast; the impact of wildfires on giant sequoias in the Sierra Nevada; and the fire ecology of longleaf pine in the Southeastern Coastal Plain, in between stints as a kayak guide and environmental educator. 

My role as Southeast Regional Manager with OGFN is the first opportunity I've been given to focus specifically on old-growth forests, and I am avidly learning more about the diversity and complexity of these incredible natural communities. 

What is your favorite forest and why?

It's difficult to say! In the South at large, I have always been deeply moved by the beauty of our coastal and maritime forests, especially our live oak hammocks. Walking under a canopy of elegant oak branches draped with resurrection fern and Spanish moss, with the sunlight filtering down dappled through that verdant roof, never fails to bring me to a place of stillness, awe, and reverence. The poet Sydney Lanier described these forests thus - beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noon-day fire. 

I must say, though, that the longleaf pine forests of my home region will always hold a special significance for me. The sound of the wind whispering through pines at night, like the hushed roar of an inland ocean, is one of my brightest and most cherished memories. 

St. Catherine's Island, GA. Photo courtesy of Katherine Russell.

What inspired you to join forces with OGFN?

I was on the search for a new line of work that would combine my enthusiasm for natural history with my desire to make an active, measurable contribution towards conservation. The position of Southeast Regional Manager with the OGFN was an ideal place to land, because it allowed me to combine my knowledge of forest ecology with my passion for advancing responsible stewardship of the landscape in my native region, the American South.

What has been the most rewarding thing so far working for OGFN?

The connections I've made, for sure! My coworkers are a superlative group of people - warm, enthusiastic, dedicated, and incredibly knowledgeable in a wonderful multitude of ways. It's also been invigorating to speak with folks from all over the South who are actively nominating forests, volunteering as county coordinators, working in all sorts of ways to recognize and conserve their communities' old-growth and maturing forests. This sort of energy and focus gives me hope for the future.

John's Island, SC. Photo courtesy of Katherine Russell.

Why do you think old-growth forests should be protected in perpetuity?

If anyone walks into a grove of ancient live oaks or towering redwoods with a receptive mind and heart, then this question answers itself in a language beyond language, a language beyond words. The sense of awe and the sublime which old forests inspire, the way they plunge us into deep time, cannot be captured in its totality through the scope of a purely economic or material lens.   

Aspects of the forests that might be honored for inspiring this sense of awe are incredible biodiversity they shelter, their unique aesthetic worth, and the sense of pride and place of time they bring to the individuals and communities that create meaning through them. 

I would say that the value of these forests goes far beyond anything that can be put into numbers or words. It has to be felt, it has to be experienced, it has to lived - and I want that opportunity to be available to everyone who goes searching for it. That's why I'm with OGFN.

Francis Marion National Forest, SC. Photo courtesy of Katherine Russell.