ADJACENT
TO THE FOREST
From
mountain communities and family lodges, to pastures, horse farms,
or private retreats your choices are splendid in welcoming Western
North Carolina. The Greater Asheville area is visually compelling,
vibrant, and culturally diverse. Whether you choose the charms
of a small college town or the metropolitan offerings of Asheville,
you are welcome home. However, many people come to our area just
to be close to the forests.
From your own front door, you can step out for a hike on the Appalachian
Trail, explore the Great Smoky Mountains National Park ,or take
a drive to the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, named for the poet
whose poem "Trees" inspired millions. The Forest Service
inaugurated the Little Santeelah as the Joyce Kilmer Memorial
Forest in 1935/
The Nantahala National Forest lies in the mountains and valleys
of western North Carolina with elevations as high as 5,800 feet
at Lone Bald in Jackson County, to a low 1,200 feet in Cherokee
County along the Tusquitee River. The Pisgah National Forest consists
of over half a million acres of forest surrounding Mt. Pisgah.
This
old growth forest looks largely as it would have 200+ years ago
before Europeans settled North America. You can almost feel it
breathe! Old growth forests are 'originals'. They are our immediate
connection to ancient history and the lessons available to us
there that we can use today. These living systems with their ongoing
cycles of birth and death and growth and decay can be deceiving
to the human eye. It may appear to us as if nothing is changing.
Yet natures countless cycles are at work from sunrise to sunset
and into the night. What is unique about old growth forests is
that those cycles have continued uninterrupted over a very, very,
very long time!
The
great old growth forests still have experienced little or no direct
disruption. Each forest seems to have a particular character.
Of course, the old growth forests vary in appearance from forest
type to forest type. An old-growth oak forest on a dry ridge will
differ greatly from an old-growth bottomland hardwood forest.
But there are still forests to be found all around the USA even
though less than 0.6% of the forest that remains in the East today
has not been heavily logged or grazed, and forest types attractive
to loggers may now be numbered only in the hundreds of acres.
Clients
ask me if the remaining old-growth forests are protected. My answer
is that at least 50% of the remaining old growth is still in private
hands or controlled by agencies that may log them. Logging of
old growth buffer zones can create the incursion of non-native
species and damage the old growth forest. Old-growth forests have
been characterized as "the key" to biodiversity. The
invaluable roles they play include making unique contributions
to the gene pool; harboring native species; demonstrating natural
processes; and serving as cores for future large wilderness areas
and as nodes of biodiversity.
CONTACT
ME IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN LAND/CABINS/PRESERVES ADJACENT
TO THE NATIONAL FOREST.
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