The Appalachian Voice
Coping With Cold
images/voice_uploads/bobcat.gif When Vice President Dick Cheney sneered that energy conservation was nothing more than “a sign of personal virtue,” he spoke exclusively from the point of view of rich American homo sapiens. For virtually every other form of life — from the daffodils in our front yards that manufacture energy for next year’s blooms from…
Read MoreCelebrate Christmas Without the Toxic Trimmings
images/voice_uploads/minixmastrees.gif What could be simpler, more natural than a Christmas tree? A lot, it turns out. Among the thousands of Christmas tree growers in the Appalachian region, just a handful grow their crops organically, and they’re frustrated and puzzled at the resistance to adopting their environmentally friendly and commercially competitive ways. They also wonder why…
Read MoreSpringhouse Farm Retreat Melds Nature, Tourism
Western North Carolina is perhaps not the first place that comes to mind when one thinks about ecotourism and especially not eco-retreats. While the ecotourism industry has taken off in the developing nations of South America and East Asia, the U.S. travel industry hasn’t been as quick to jump on the bandwagon, even as 2002…
Read MoreTaking the “Worst First,” Leaving the Best to Grow
images/voice_uploads/rutledge2.gif The famously beautiful hills of Floyd County, Virginia, attracted hippies in the 1960s and ‘70s, New Agers in the 1980s and ‘90s, and most recently, Y2K wannabe refugees from Wall Street. But it wasn’t the Blue Ridge vista that was framed in the picture window of Jason Rutledge’s living room. It was the barn.…
Read MoreBush Administration Undercutting Forest, Air Regs
With classic below-the-radar timing, the Bush Administration unveiled plans the day before Thanksgiving to gut regulations that govern the management of our National Forests. Conservationists pilloried the move, saying it’s designed to suppress public involvement while undercutting ecological sustainability. A few days earlier, on November 22, the Bush administration announced its plans to weaken key…
Read MoreIs Air Pollution Adding to Regional Hemlock Death?
Over the past decade, public awareness of the perilous situation facing our native hemlocks in the southern Appalachians has grown. An exotic bug from Asia, the hemlock wooly adelgid (HWA), has ravaged hemlock stands from New England to Virginia and recently the epidemic has moved southward into the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. This…
Read MoreHolly & Mountain Ash: Berry Rich, Very Different
American mountain ash and American holly generally occupy separate ranges in North America. Their domains, however, converge in the Southern Appalachians, where the two trees exhibit an interesting duality along the mountain slopes. Mountain ash is found along the highest peaks, while holly is abundant farther downslope. Both trees, though, are generally absent in a…
Read MoreNeedmore Tract Appears Safe From Development
Crescent Resources, the real estate developing arm of Duke Power, announced in December that it has accepted a letter of intent from the North Carolina Chapter of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to purchase the properties known as Needmore in Macon and Swain counties for just over $19 million. If completed, the purchase would protect one…
Read MoreFor Paddlers & Anglers, WVa.’s Elk River Offers Many Faces
West Virginia’s Elk River is a priceless treasure. From its headwaters of frigid, ground-fed springs in Pocahontas County, to its mouth at Charleston, West Virginia’s capital, the Elk transforms itself several times. At 180 miles long, the Elk is the longest river flowing entirely within West Virginia’s borders. For boaters, the first few dozen miles…
Read MoreAppalachian Residents Want Forests Protected
People who live in the Southern Appalachians want their national forests protected, show recent surveys by the Southern Research Station (SRS) of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). The surveys by the SRS Recreation, Wilderness and Demographic Trends Unit in Athens, Georgia, found that area residents want the forests managed to protect clean sources of water,…
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