Due in large part to prodding from Lamar Marshall and input from Wild South through the Bankhead Liaison Panel, the 2004 Revised Land and Resource Management Plan for National Forests in Alabama included a new management prescription especially for canyon corridors.  The canyon prescription recognizes the sandstone canyons of the Bankhead National Forest as unique ecosystems supporting rare plant communities, deserving of a level of protection exceeded only by the wilderness prescription.  This area of northwest Alabama contains the southwestern-most extension of the Cumberland Plateau and the cove hardwood forest type, which thrives in the conditions present in the Bankhead’s canyons.

In 2004, WildSouth proposed to the Bankhead district office that we undertake to map the remaining canyons of the Bankhead.  The Forest Service readily accepted our offer, and the survey was initiated by Lamar Marshall and the summer intern at the time, available through the generosity of the Stanback Foundation.  The survey was continued sporadically by long-time WildSouth volunteer Stewart Horn, and then by 2005 summer intern, Tyson Wepprich, who did an outstanding job establishing the program’s credibility with the Forest Service.

In 2006, WildSouth obtained grants from the National Forest Foundation, the Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation, and the Fund for Wild Nature to help fund this work. Recognizing by this time the enormity of the undertaking, Wild South hired part-time staffer Mark Kolinski to bring organization and uniformity to the survey and make it a year-round endeavor.

The basic management units of the Restoration Plan are sixth-level watersheds, and the Forest Service is formulating detailed management plans for five different watersheds each year.  There are approximately 50 6th-level watersheds in the 181,000 acres of the Bankhead, which have a significant acreage of National Forest land.  In some cases, two watersheds are paired into one unit for management purposes.  Walking the hillslopes in all the drainages of every watershed with a GPS, recording waypoints and field observations, Mark and WildSouth volunteers and interns are determined to find and document every area where conditions exist to qualify it for canyon prescription.  As of February 2010, field work has been completed in 22 of the 36 watershed units.