Last week the world lost one of its best, brightest, and most fun environmental champions, Lenny Kohm. Lenny was a long time champion of wilderness, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ending mountaintop removal, and protecting forests and communities across the Southern US.

I first met Lenny in 1997 in Santa Barbara, California, when he was tirelessly traveling around the United States working to raise awareness around the need to protect the vast arctic wilderness. When I started with Dogwood Alliance in 2000, one of the first people I called on to help me become a better organizer and help stop the invasion of the chip mills in North Carolina was Lenny, who at the time was living in Rutherford County and helping local community members organize and fight back against a chip mill that was decimating the forests and disrupting the quality of life in that county.

Over the years, I have worked, organized and played with Lenny. He always had a joke even in the toughest of situations and firmly believed that collectively we could overcome the most difficult of environmental tragedies. He was a true inspiration and will be sorely missed. I am proud to have called him a friend and believe that he would want us to raise a glass in his honor and then get back to the business of challenging corporate power and protecting all of the wild places that we love.

Read more about Lenny on the Appalachian Voices blog.