07/17/2025
Align Asheville Statement on UNCA Woods Preservation:
As healthcare practitioners deeply rooted in the Asheville community, we at Align
Asheville join our neighbors in urging UNCA to make the only right choice to protect the irreplaceable 45-acre urban forest that serves as one of our city's last remaining
woodland sanctuaries.
Our work centers on healingārestoring balance to the bodies entrusted to our care.
These woods also provide essential healing functions, providing a therapeutic resource freely to all members of our community, regardless of their ability to pay for healthcare or travel to distant natural areas. With our forested lands already so severely affected by the hurricane, protecting this remaining woodland is not just environmental stewardshipāthough this is enoughāit's preventive medicine for our entire community.
Animal welfare and its importance to the whole is another deep value we hold as an
organization, and we want institutions in our town who value this as well. The
biodiversity, the mature canopy, the intricate web of life that has developed over
decades thereāall of this would be lost forever. No amount of future tree planting could replace what would be eliminated, and this is heartbreaking.
As a practice committed to the health of our community, including the animals who live here, we recognize that protecting these woods is protecting the essence of what it means to live in Asheville. We urge UNCA's leadership to find another way to continue development, in a place and way that doesnāt destroy the very land that makes their school and our mountains so special.
Save UNCA Woods is having a general meeting TONIGHT at 6:30 at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church. Please join your community and get informed on how you can help save the woods. https://www.saveuncawoods.org/home
