Initiatives
Wilderness Louisville, Inc. is one of the multiple local non-profit organizations working to raise funds and advocate on behalf of Louisville’s public parks and natural spaces. Our role, as a partner to Louisville Metro Government and Louisville Parks and Recreation, is to support the improvement of natural community assets and nature-related programming that are the management responsibility of the Natural Areas Division based at Jefferson Memorial Forest.
This means we are focused on conservation and connecting people to nature. Our motto is “Nature for Everyone,” and this is reflected in the primary initiatives that we support. We support implementation of the Jefferson Memorial Forest Master Plan so that the Forest can reach its tremendous potential both as Louisville’s largest nature preserve and a community asset that enhances quality of life for residents of southwest Louisville and beyond. We also support the West Louisville Outdoor Recreation Initiative, which is designed to improve equitable access to nature in our community by addressing deficiencies in the location of nature-related infrastructure and programming, particularly in west Louisville. This initiative has its roots in Jefferson Memorial Forest’s Louisville is Engaging Children Outdoors (ECHO) Initiative, which has steadily grown since its launch in 2008 and now provides youth – primarily in west and south Louisville – with continual experiences in nature.
West Louisville Outdoor Recreation Initiative
In 2016, with critical community input through a series of public meetings and public events and with planning support from the National Park Service, the West Louisville Outdoor Recreation Initiative Master Plan was created. This planning document acknowledged Louisville’s geographic inequity related to the infrastructure and programming devoted to nature-based outdoor recreation and education. To find out more about recommended investments to address this, please click below.
Mill Creek Greenway
The Mill Creek Greenway project will transform approximately eight miles of waterway and publicly-owned land located between Sylvania Park in the Pleasure Ridge Park neighborhood and the Mill Creek power plant south of Valley Station. Through a grant from The Nature Conservancy, landscape architects and planners from Human Nature will work with residents and other stakeholders to create a plan to bring new life to this urban waterway.