2001 – Issue 2 (June)

images/voice_uploads/HWA.gif The recent discovery of Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (HWA) infestations in Graham, Macon and Yancey counties is a major setback in the battle to keep Eastern and Carolina hemlocks alive in southern Appalachian forests. “Until a few months ago, we thought the adelgid hadn’t spread beyond the northern tier [of North Carolina] counties,” says Fred…

Richard Cartwright Austin may be a Presbyterian minister and internationally known theologian, a high-brow intellectual and refined aesthete, but he’s also something of a Sybarite. I found this reassuring, in a man who might otherwise intimidate. What gave him away was his hot tub, set into a gracious deck with beds of summer flowers and…

What does it mean for a young person to study “science”? It can involve textbooks, tests and exams, a microscope here and there, and more textbooks. The typical public education of biology, ecology, botany, silviculture and chemistry — if public education includes these subjects at all — often lacks the hands-on integrative teaching methods on…

Just as families are an integral part of our society, so are forests an especially important and central part of our environment. How fitting, then, to combine the two in a festive outdoor event celebrating the interaction of people and nature? Appalachian Voices did just that, teaming up with other non-profit and local governmental agencies,…

images/voice_uploads/ashbypam.gif Ever since the Wilderness Act was signed into law in 1964, it has been subject to misconceptions and innuendo heaped upon it by those who disagree with its purpose of permanently protecting areas of public land in a wild, untrammeled state. Many of these “wilderness myths” persist today, and not surprisingly, those perpetuating these…

A major asset of southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee is the region’s forest land. Most of the timber harvested in these forests, however, is shipped out of Appalachia as unprocessed logs, taking potential jobs with them. The folks at Appalachian Sustainable Development (ASD) know that, rather than cutting local timber and sending the logs elsewhere…

As 2001 rolled into its first breath of spring, the Southeast saw rise to a new alliance whose sole mission is dealing with sustainable forestry and landowner outreach. Unlike other multi-organizational groups, the Southern Sustainable Forestry Alliance (SSFA), as it is called, reaches out to not only conservation organizations, but also to landowners, foresters, loggers,…

The energy plan recently released by President Bush is an ill-conceived effort which takes advantage of our current short-term energy problems to push bad long-term policies. The plan, developed behind closed doors by oil man Vice-President Dick Cheney for oil man President Bush, offers a feast for the coal, oil, and nuclear industries, while providing…