Trish Johnson, Director Forest Conservation -The Nature Conservancy (TNC)

Growing up in Indiana, her family would travel to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for vacation. It is there she fell in love with the forests of Tennessee. After completing her undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Southern Indiana, she moved to Tennessee to complete her master’s degree in Biology at Tennessee Tech. Trish has worked with the Tennessee Chapter for nearly 15 years in various capacities, most of which, centered around forests. Trish led TNC’s work with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to pass a firewood policy which was a culmination of research and outreach to support the reduction of movement of forest pests and pathogens that can threaten TN forests. TN State Parks and US Army Corps of Engineers followed suit with firewood policies, and the partnership has worked to increase safer firewood businesses in TN as well as build an online tool, firewood scout.org to enable citizens to find safe firewood. For the past five years, she has been leading the Tennessee Chapter’s Forest Conservation Program, focusing on strategic planning and initiatives to improve forest health and achieve natural climate solutions on public and private forests across the state. One of the initiaves she has been spearheading is the Working Woodlands Program, which has shown great success and growth since 2015, reaching 4 projects on 30,000 acres. She is a member of The Nature Conservancy’s Natural Climate Solutions Core Team, a team that is guiding TNC’s engagement across the eastern US states to grow Family Forest Carbon and Carbon Co-ops.