Wrap the Woods Event

ASHEVILLE, NC — The Save the Woods organization in Asheville, NC, invites volunteers, community members, and activists to an art action: Wrap the Woods on Saturday, September 6, starting at 9:30 a.m.

UNC Asheville’s 54-acre urban forest and cherished community resource and wildlife habitat (aka “The Woods”) is under threat of development despite its status as one of the last remaining urban forests in Asheville.

As part of a multi-phase plan, UNCA proposes leasing the urban forest property to a developer who will erect a 5,000-seat stadium along with retail shops and market-rate housing. Community members are speaking out against this plan,  including university staff, faculty, and students; members of the adjacent neighborhoods, which will be directly impacted by the development; and more than 15,000 petition signers.

However, after months of community action to preserve this forest, the university’s administration and the UNC Board of Governors refuse to change course. The Wrap The Woods event is intended to draw attention to the sheer size of the threatened acreage containing around 20,000 trees.

This art action was inspired indirectly by artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who were known for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations. It is directly inspired by by local Asheville resident Peggy Gardner who, in 1980, borrowed from the awe-inducing spectacle of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s wrap installations to save a then-threatened downtown Asheville.

At the time, city leaders and business-owners were pushing to demolish 11 city acres of the quiet, fairly empty downtown to make room for a complex containing a shopping mall and hotel. Gardner and other organizers envisioned an educational art installation, wrapping the blocks and buildings facing demolition to provide a visual of what would be lost.

Two hundred people volunteered to help save downtown, and today Asheville is a thriving city with a bustling tourism industry set against the charming backdrop of beautifully preserved Art Deco architecture.

Today, it is Asheville’s last-remaining forested acreage that needs protection. The Urban Forest is an important wildlife corridor, home to a wide variety of plant, animal, and bird life. It’s also an outdoor classroom for at least 18 UNCA course offerings in the natural sciences alone and provides recreation and relaxation within city limits for university staff, students and the surrounding community.

And less than a year since Hurricane Helene ravaged Western North Carolina, the community is still hard at work rebuilding from the losses wrought by the storm, including 40% of its tree canopy. To raze 54 acres of forest is to demolish even more of that damaged canopy along with an important stormwater mitigation system and carbon sink.

To draw attention to this cause, the community will stand side-by-side on September 6, holding up sheets to form a human chain “wrapping” the Urban Forest in fabric, demonstrating the impact of this devastation and to show objectively what is at stake for our community and our planet, and to preserve this precious natural resource.

Meet at 9:30 a.m., with the Wrap event from 10-11 a.m. Please bring a sheet (used, from a thrift shop if you’d like to paint a message on it) for the Wrap.