Bug Buddies: Some Insects Find Power In Numbers

images/voice_uploads/monarchclustr.gif Collecting sassafras sprays to feed the hungry cecropia caterpillars I was raising a couple of summers ago, I found a contingent of tiny caterpillars clustered on the underside of a leaf. They weren’t cecropias, or any other sassafras-eating caterpillar I knew. What struck me was the way they had arranged themselves: flank to flank,…

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Modern Day Mountain Midwives Help At Home

Childbirth is no longer the mystifying, women-only topic it used to be. Nowadays, fathers are allowed in the delivery room, and sometimes even “catch” the baby. That is, if the hospital allows it, and if the hospital allows men in there at all. And only if there is a baby to catch, rather than a…

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The Basket Man

images/voice_uploads/jessebutch.gif Jesse Butcher nearly lost one of his hands before he discovered what artistry it could perform. In fact, anyone who saw the lanky Tennessean in a hospital emergency room that spring day in 1977 would have considered him lucky just to be alive. “I was sawin’ locust poles for my neighbor, Earl Woods,” says…

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Cores, Cougars & Corridors

Bob DeGroot has a dream. He dreams of a day when eastern cougars can travel unimpeded by development from the mountains of Pennsylvania into the Maryland hill country and across the spine of Appalachia into Virginia and West Virginia — all without leaving the protection of forest. DeGroot, president of the Maryland Alliance for Greenway…

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Julia “Butterfly” Hill Speaks At Sweet Briar College

Julia “Butterfly” Hill became a focus of international attention as she spent 738 days on a platform suspended 180 feet up in 1,000-year-old redwood tree in California. On March 13, as the featured speaker for the 3rd annual Julia B. Waxter Environmental Studies Forum at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, she spoke to an overflow…

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Sweet Briar Debates Logging

This year, in addition to Julia Butterfly’s talk, the Sweet Briar College campus was the site of a meeting of the international 500-Year Forest Foundation, which advocates restoration of the world’s forests to their natural state of maturity. Paradoxically, the college is currently involved in an internal controversy over how to manage its own forests.…

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Locust Trees Helped America Win Wars, Grow Crops

It does not have the spreading majesty of a white oak, nor the reputation of the American chestnut. Unlike the maple, its fall color is not spectacular, and few homes have furniture made from its woods. Yet the locust tree (Robinia pseudoacacia) is a very useful hardwood with its own remarkable beauty. This native mountain…

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Study: Appalachian Forests Dying From Acid Rain

The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 were supposed to solve the acid rain problem of the 70’s and 80’s, but a new study by scientists at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire finds that the Act hasn’t gone far enough. The Hubbard Brook study, overseen by the U.S. Forest Service, found that…

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AppVoices & Allies Push Clean Smokestacks Act

On March 4, members of Appalachian Voices and more than 100 other concerned citizens descended on Raleigh to urge lawmakers to protect and restore North Carolina’s air quality. Acknowledging the validity of the argument advanced by the North Carolina Clean Air Coalition (NCCAC) that North Carolina’s air quality is in desperate need of protection, a…

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Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor I hope this finds you doing well. I enjoyed the visit with you and compadres, am sure I’ll be seeing you soon. I am going to attempt to type my poem that I had printed in the newspaper. This was written when I had enough of just sitting quietly by and letting my…

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