Lungs_of_Atlanta
South River Forest
Forest in Atlanta, Georgia
The South River Forest or Weelaunee Forest is an area in southeast metro Atlanta DeKalb County, Georgia, United States named after the nearby South River. The South River is also known by its Muscogee Creek name, the "Weelaunee". The area includes significant disparate, undeveloped forested parcels that help protect the river and tributaries. The area was originally identified and named the "South River Park" by Atlanta's Department of City Planning (Aspiring to the Beloved Community, 2017 Design for Nature section, pages 320-349) and identified as one of the lungs of Atlanta to be established as a conservation zone. Subsequently, The Nature Conservancy, the South River Watershed Alliance, South River Forest Coalition, Save the Old Atlanta Prison Farm, and others collaborated in an effort to hold Atlanta accountable to its conservation plan for the area.
In 2021, local community members and Muscogee Creek representatives dubbed the South River Forest the "Weelaunee Forest". The area itself is made up of disparate forested parcels that protect Atlanta's urban South River and its tributaries. The forest once held a prison farm, and it is a proposed site for a police training facility that has garnered protests.