The lead editor, Jennifer Fulford, of Smokies Life (online=Smokies Live) sent out positive news. After three years of rehabilitation the Ramsey Cascades Trail will reopen. The trail traverses "old growth forests".
Out West writer Leigh Reagan Smith has an article in Buckrail giving an update on where the nation is at with old-growth forests in a general way. There had been a Biden executive order linking such forests to "global warming" (executive order 14072). Some people attribute such designation as taking action, but forests just falling down? Not sure that's action that's helpful to the forests or people. The article tells us that a Governor Mark Gordon Press Release says, "The Old-Growth amendment was an unworkable attempt to amend a large number of Management Plans using a single EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) developed on an unrealistic timeline."
The legislation to nullify the executive order was introduced by Representative Dan Newhouse who said, the plan as it was, was "out of touch with the needs of rural America." Newhouse also brought up the increased risk of catastrophic wildfire when we get timber harvesting and forest management incorrect or imaginary.
Here in WNC (Western North Carolina) and the GSM (Great Smoky Mountains) we've been in this place before. There are some big categories of forest-tending and forest-tourism. With changes to legislation and funding the categories of responsibility/"ownership" are changing too. I remember being a young person and freaking out that some monstrous non-caring thing was going to destroy all the nature. My feelings were clouding my reason! What I found in reality was a whole lot of people finding all kinds of ways to keep nature as part of the nation. And people developing ways to match dollar bills to the actual services that protect and defend and prosper with the forests as a shared resource.
We are starting to find job opportunities at USAjobs.com and through NCWORKS .... very exciting!
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