Sustainability is a multi-generational narrative seen and felt most acutely through family stories. While all family forest owners face trials and travails, the most dramatic stories unfolding today are amongst Black family foresters in the South. They face many challenges: lack of credit and capital, barriers to accessing forestry services, and threats to their land ownership from predatory developers using legal loopholes.

This cinema vérité style documentary, Family Tree (click to view trailer), tells the moving story of two Black family forest owners in North Carolina. It tracks their triumphs and struggles historically and in the present day. The Jefferies sisters, Nikki and Natalie, struggle with their estranged father, Sidney, to clear the overgrown thicket of underbrush on their property. Meanwhile, the Williams family cultivates an award-winning tree farm at their aptly named Fourtee Acres.

Carolina Nature Coalition invites you to join us to view Family Tree, Tuesday, November 26th, 6:30 PM, UUFNB, 308 Meadows Street, New Bern

This free film is open to the public