As we enter a new year of this campaign, we’re excited to begin sharing more regular updates —offering you a window into the immense amount of work happening behind the scenes to build this movement and protect both our community and this irreplaceable forest.
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Save Sledge Forest is powered by a dedicated team of volunteers who meet every week to discuss strategy, fundraising, community outreach, and all else Save Sledge Forest! Our 501(c)(3) nonprofit status is pending, and this will allow us to expand our capacity for fundraising, pursuing grants, and strengthening our long-term impact.
We began this campaign, with passion and conviction - building a website, holding Town Halls and presentations, recruiting speakers for commissioner meetings, writing 100's of letters to our decision makers, holding petition drives, organizing rallies, and raising awareness at every opportunity.
That effort has resulted in a petition with close to 14,000 signatures; 500 estimated citizens attending the Copper Builders Community Meeting; public support from elected officials; media attention at the local, state, and even national level; support from eight environmental organizations and their thousands of members; and the creation of a documentary short called “The Last Forest”.
Behind the scenes, we continue to work with and recruit scientists and experts in ecology, traffic engineering, water quality, policy, and community planning. These professionals have met with officials, spoken at public meetings, submitted comments and statements to officials and decision makers, and guided and supported our efforts throughout this campaign.
In April, 2025, we retained legal counsel, and our highly qualified attorney has been busy crafting strong legal challenges. While nothing for this project has yet been approved, we are ready with appeals if we reach that juncture.
In the meantime, we were successful in recruiting support from Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), a non-profit organization that is the south’s leader on law and policy that protects our nation’s most basic environmental protections. When Hilton Bluffs submitted their revised application in October, 2025, a team of SELC lawyers drafted and submitted an 8-page letter to our Planning Department that presented a strong argument for not approving the Hilton Bluffs application as it was proposed.
We do not know yet what will come of this, but we continue to work with SELC and our county officials on this promising new development.
While the path ahead is winding and uncertain, we remain deeply—and deliberately—hopeful and comitted in our goal to stop this project, save our neighborhoods, and save Sledge Forest.
Stay tuned— there is more to come.
Sign up for our monthly newsletter by clicking this link: SSF Newsletter Sign Up