Tennessee Treasures are wonderful, beautiful places that are so special they need to be protected for public enjoyment, in perpetuity. We work to identify and protect the most beautiful, the most ecologically rich, the most historically significant places remaining in Tennessee. Privately owned waterfalls have been identified as a focus of our work. We strive also to acquire necessary in-holdings and boundary properties important for existing parks and wild areas. We fundraise to buy Tennessee Treasures, teach others to conserve land, accept land/ easement donations and through our Emergency Land Bank, make loans available to other private or public organizations for conserving beautiful spots.

Corridor Connections protect the garden that is Tennessee. Greenways protect wildlife migration corridors, protect the water quality of our streams from the poisons of non- point source run-off, provide close-to-home recreation, protect our state’s scenery, and provide us all with a prettier, nicer place to live. We help coordinate large landscape- scale greenway projects with multiple partners to preserve world-class corridors such as the Mississippi River Natural and Recreational Corridor along the length of Tennessee’s Western “coast.” The Foundation incubated and then launched the Mississippi River Corridor, Inc., an eco-tourism organization. Our partnership will help conserve key destination parks which celebrate and protect the most significant natural treasures for recreation and for the millions of birds that travel the Mississippi flyway in this 650,000 acre corridor. Economic return through increased Mississippi River tourism will make funding this ambitious project possible. On the Cumberland Plateau, with our partners, we are linking together more than 55,000 acres at Fall Creek Falls State Park, Scott’s Gulf and Bledsoe State Forest. Four acquisitions that we initiated have conserved more than 3,000 acres there. Also, we award State Park Connections, privately-funded small matching grants, which foster connections, literally on-the-ground between communities and their nearby state park or natural area.

Some of our "Treasures" and “Connections” include:

  • Black Mountain
  • Devilstep Hollow Cave
  • Head of Sequatchie Spring
  • Welch's Point in Scott's Gulf
  • Big South Fork's North White Oak Creek
  • Stillhouse Hollow Falls
  • Mississipi River's Hickman Bar and Chickasaw Bluff
  • Obed River Preserve
  • Blackburn Fork
  • Randolph Bluff.
  • Caney Fork River headwaters
  • Nolichucky River
  • Cane Creek Gorge at Fall Creek Falls
  • Brady Mountain
  • Mound Bottom