Forecastle Founder Launches Environmental Foundation

Louisville’s biggest outdoor music festival is branching out and launching an environmental foundation. The Forecastle Foundation will focus on conserving the planet’s “biodiversity hotspots.”“Hotspot” is used to refer to one of several dozen places around the world that are known for incredible biodiversity. Collectively, these sites contain nearly half of all known species, even though they only make up 2.3 percent of the Earth’s surface.Forecastle founder J.K. McKnight says Forecastlehas always been about music, art and activism, and he sees the inclusion of an environmental foundation as a natural fit.“Environmentalism has always been something since growing up as a child that I’ve kind of always taken to my heart and something that I’ve always wanted to be involved in,” he said. “And I really look at this as the center of that, as the most critical areas left on the planet.”The foundation will focus on local education about the hotspots, as well as working on international conservation efforts.“We want to educate people on these areas and really kind of tie the first world into the third world and explain to people how even though these areas are thousands of miles away from us, we’re completely dependent on them,” McKnight said.The Forecastle Foundation’s membership program will officially launch in the next few weeks. McKnight says there are a number of ways for people to get involved with the project.