Resilient Forests Archives – Page 2 of 15

Resilient Forests E-News: April ’25

Events Roundup

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our volunteer workdays this past month! We had a great time partnering with Carolina Mountain Club and Friends of Hominy Creek Greenway on trail maintenance and invasive plant removal. Folks showed up and showed out, completing some excellent work on the Mountains to Sea Trail even with wildfire smoke in the air. Our invasive plant removal work along Hominy Creek Greenway was also a huge success, with 25 participants cutting and removing invasive plants and applying herbicide to ensure our native species can flourish in that area.

Get Involved

Ongoing – Landslide Documentation Project: Sign up to document landslides on public lands in Western NC! We have already had 49 people sign up and multiple data entries input already – thank you to everyone who is helping with this project! Sign up here! If you’re having any trouble using the Survey123 app or would like additional assistance, please fill out this survey.

Saturday, May 3 – Wildflower Walk and Garlic Mustard Pull: Join MountainTrue as we enjoy spring wildflowers and pull invasive garlic mustard on the Appalachian Trail near Max Patch. Read more and sign up here!

Friday, May 9 – Nature Yoga: In partnership with Highlands-Cashier Land Trust, join MountainTrue for a rejuvenating experience of nature yoga and forest bathing in Highlands, NC. Read more and sign up here!

Wednesday, May 28 – Conservation Conversations: Come meet some of the organizations in your community working to recover and conserve the places we love and share at Conservation Conversations. We’ll be at RAD Brewing and joined by Asheville Greenworks, Hemlock Restoration Initiative, and Carolina Mountain Club. Confirm your attendance here!

Friday, May 30 – Trail Workday: Join MountainTrue and Carolina Mountain Club for a day of trail maintenance near Asheville! The work location will be decided closer to the date, and we’ll communicate that to you the week of the workday. Sign up here!

Saturday, June 21 – BioBlitz: Help MountainTrue document biodiversity at Hickory Nut Gap Farm near Asheville. Volunteer with us in the afternoon, then celebrate a job well done at the evening barn dance! Sign up here!

In the News

After more than a decade of public engagement, partnerships, and planning, the U.S. Forest Service had the opportunity to get it right. Instead, on March 20, 2023, they finalized a Forest Management Plan for the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests that takes us backward — threatening some of the most beloved and biologically diverse landscapes in Western North Carolina. That’s why MountainTrue is taking legal action. We’re joining with our partners to sue the Forest Service over its deeply flawed Forest Plan — a plan that undermines public trust, sacrifices rare species habitat and existing old-growth forests, and sets a dangerous precedent for forest management across the Southern Appalachians. Read more.

Records show flaws in data used to back logging in Pisgah, Nantahala: Resilient Forests Director Josh Kelly is quoted in this piece from the Asheville Watchdog. The 2023 Management Plan for the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests increases logging six times over the previous plan. The models used to justify the expansion fail to account for natural disturbances like storms and wildfires, and are based on what the forests looked like prior to European colonization. Environmental groups like MountainTrue worry over where logging will occur, rather than how much – with particular concern over the potential for logging in rare old-growth areas. Hiking through an area of Brushy Mountain logged last summer, Josh Kelly encountered a felled tree aged 171 years old: “My emotional response is, gosh, I hope someone does something to honor this really exceptional, venerable tree,” he said. “I hope it was worth it. And my anger is, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.”

Volunteer Spotlight

MountainTrue volunteer Andy Widenhouse has been hard at work documenting landslides for our landslide survey citizen science project! Andy has paid particular attention to the impacts of Hurricane Helene on Brook Trout streams, creating a map that shows how degradation of these streams has reduced Brook Trout populations post-Helene. Thanks for all your hard work, Andy!

Federal Policy Updates Affecting Public Lands & Forests

Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names Eliminated by Trump Administration: The ACRPN was terminated in early March. Established by previous Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, the ACRPN existed to identify and replace derogatory place names. During her tenure, Secretary Haaland replaced 650 place names containing a slur for Indigenous women with names chosen by local communities and Tribal Nations. The ACRPN identified an additional 1500 derogatory place names.

National forests face the hatchet as Trump administration boosts logging: On April 3rd, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins released a memo designating an emergency situation on National Forest lands. The designation inappropriately rolls back environmental protections and encourages logging on an additional 60% of forest lands. The move comes in response to an Executive Order signed last month.

Trump considering plan to change how the country fights wildfires: The Trump Administration is considering creating a new federal agency focused on extinguishing fires quickly after they start. State and federal officials worry that this plan could erode safety standards and place too much emphasis on simply putting out fires, rather than focusing holistically on land management that reduces wildfire risk.

Resilient Forests E-News: March ’25

Events Roundup

Thanks to everyone who joined us in February for Conservation Conversations! We had a great night at Ecusta Brewing in Brevard, NC. Hemlock Restoration Initiative, Conserving Carolina, Trout Unlimited (Pisgah Chapter), and Pisgah Area SORBA joined MountainTrue to discuss their current work and opportunities for attendees to get involved. We hope to see even more folks at our upcoming Conservation Conversation in Asheville at RAD Brewing, May 28!

Get Involved

Ongoing: Help MountainTrue document damage to forest roads and trails by signing up to participate in landslide surveys. Go for a hike, take your phone, and submit data if you see a landslide. Sign up here!

Friday, March 28: Join MountainTrue and Carolina Mountain Club for a Trail Workday near Asheville. Read more and sign up here!

Saturday, April 5: Join MountainTrue and Friends of Hominy Creek Greenway for a day of removing non-native invasive plants along the Greenway. Read more and sign up here!

Saturday, May 3: Join MountainTrue as we enjoy spring wildflowers and pull invasive garlic mustard on the Appalachian Trail near Max Patch. Read more and sign up here!

Save the Date

Wednesday, May 28: Join MountainTrue and other land stewardship-focused organizations for Conservation Conversations in Asheville at RAD Brewing! Sip and socialize, then learn how you can get involved in the important work these organizations do.

Saturday, June 21: BioBlitz! Help MountainTrue document biodiversity at Hickory Nut Gap Farm near Asheville. Volunteer with us in the afternoon, then celebrate a job well done at the evening barn dance!

Take Action

Save the UNCA Woods! MountainTrue is working with a local alliance of dedicated volunteers to protect the University of North Carolina Asheville’s urban forest. The 45-acre forest in the heart of downtown Asheville provides a scenic respite from everyday life by offering outdoor recreation opportunities. The woods also act as a carbon sink, heat mitigation tool, and wildlife habitat. Although the woods are ecologically important and beloved by many, they are now under threat of development. MountainTrue believes UNCA should prioritize building on their already cleared lots (totaling about 20 acres) before they consider destroying one of the city’s few intact urban forests. Please join us in asking UNCA to protect the forest and better collaborate with those who appreciate the forest for its many values.

In the News

MountainTrue’s Resilient Forests Director, Josh Kelly, recently shared his perspective in the Asheville Citizen Times on how proposed cuts to federal workers could harm the national parks and forests in Western North Carolina. In his op-ed, Kelly argues that the loss of federal employees would jeopardize vital conservation efforts and the health of these treasured landscapes.

Federal Policy Updates Affecting Public Lands & Forests

Federal judges order Trump Administration to reinstate thousands of fired workers (March 13): A federal judge has ordered the immediate rehiring of fired probationary workers from the Defense, Treasury, Energy, Interior, Agriculture, and Veterans Affairs departments. The judge called the firings an unlawful sham, saying that the agencies did not follow proper protocol for firing employees. However, as the judge noted in his decision, agencies do still have the authority to implement reductions in force. The Trump Administration called for all agencies to submit reduction in force plans last month, and the White House will soon be reviewing those plans. Forest Service employees in Western North Carolina who were fired and then rehired may still be laid off through the reduction in force plan.

EPA looks to roll back significant climate protections (March 12): EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin says he is looking to reconsider the endangerment finding, the principle that global warming poses a danger to human health and welfare. The endangerment finding, established in 2009, is the basis for limiting greenhouse gas emissions from many different sectors. Disproving the finding would pave the way for broadly dismantling greenhouse gas pollution regulations. Other EPA rules that may be reconsidered include those regulating wastewater, reducing haze in national parks, limiting CO2 emissions from power plants, and reducing methane emissions by the oil and gas industry.

Trump Administration seeks to increase logging in national forests and on public lands (March 4): President Trump signed executive actions directing agencies to increase logging on public lands and reduce timber imports from Canada and other countries. He also directed agencies to look into ways to bypass endangered species and other wildlife protections to increase timber production. Trump’s orders cite wildfire risk as a reason for ramping up U.S. timber production, but other groups point out that hotter average temperatures and dry conditions in forests create more risk for wildfires.

Take Action + Tell UNC Asheville: Save the Woods!

Public land at the University of North Carolina Asheville (UNCA) is under threat of being developed. Please contact the Chancellor, Dr. Kimberly van Noort, Board of Trustees Chair Roger Aiken, and the rest of the Board of Trustees, and urge them to halt this development and save the woods!

UNCA’s 45-acre urban forest is a cherished resource for students and community members in the heart of Asheville. The woods offer an escape from busy city life and provide habitat for a variety of wildlife species. Unfortunately, in early January, the university began the process of assessing the woods for potential development. Excavators cleared wide paths through the forest, with boring and drilling work beginning a few weeks later. The university failed to issue advance notice of these activities to their students and the surrounding community. Read more and sign the petition to Save the UNCA Woods here!

We want UNCA to thrive, but not at the cost of free and easily accessible outdoor recreation and wildlife habitat. What’s more, UNCA has other options for expansion. The former Health Adventure Property on Broadway has been cleared and ready for building for over a decade, yet remains fallow. Please contact Chancellor van Noort, Chairman Aiken, and the Board of Trustees and urge them to halt all development of the UNCA Urban Forest, and instead consider already cleared land for construction projects.

Protect the Nolichucky River! Tell NC DEQ: Require Stronger Environmental Protections for CSX’s Railroad Rebuild

Photo courtesy of Jubal Roe.

Keep advocating to protect the Nolichucky! Please comment now to ensure stronger environmental requirements for CSX as they rebuild their railroad through North Carolina’s Nolichucky River Gorge.

North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality is requesting public comment on CSX’s application to rebuild their railroad through our state’s section of the Nolichucky River Gorge. You may recall that CSX’s railroad experienced extensive damage as a result of Hurricane Helene, and CSX immediately started rebuilding in a manner that was highly damaging to the Nolichucky River’s Wild and Scenic values. Your advocacy helped stop their destruction previously but unfortunately, CSX is back at it under new approvals from the Army Corps of Engineers.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality can stop CSX’s most harmful practices and we need your help again pushing for strong environmental protections in their permit. Please use the link below to submit comments and help us protect the Nolichucky. We encourage you to make your comment your own, but the following may serve as a framework:

https://edocs.deq.nc.gov/Forms/401_Public_Notice_Comments

ID#: 20241562

Version: 2

Project Name: CSXT Emergency Track Rebuild Post Hurricane Helene

Your stance on the project: No

Comment:

I am opposed to this project without additional protections. The following provisions, if included, would allow me to support this project:

DEQ should prohibit any harvesting, mining, or excavation of material from below the ordinary high-water mark. Tennessee’s Department of Environment and Conservation has already prohibited the removal of material below the ordinary high-water mark in Tennessee. NC DEQ should do the same.
DEQ should establish an ordinary high-water mark using the Army Corps’ January 2025 Ordinary High-Water Mark Manual. That analysis indicates the ordinary high-water mark should be approximately 6 feet above baseflow in the Gorge.
DEQ must prohibit the removal of rock or any other material from any named rapid.
DEQ should require CSX to provide for safe recreational and commercial whitewater access during reconstruction.
The Nolichucky Gorge has been designated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as critical habitat for the endangered Appalachian Elktoe. It is also habitat for the Eastern Hellbender, which the Fish and Wildlife Service recently proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act. DEQ should require CSX to survey areas for Appalachian Elktoe and Eastern Hellbender presence before CSX takes any action – including operating machinery such as dump trucks and excavators – below the ordinary high-water mark.

Take Action: Protect Hellbenders

SOS: Save Our Salamanders!

Friday, December 13 was a lucky day for eastern hellbender salamanders. Following years of advocacy from environmental organizations and conservation-minded individuals, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing hellbenders as an endangered species across their entire range. Listing this species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is a huge step towards their continued existence, offering substantial federal protections that have historically been massively successful in bolstering populations of other listed species. To ensure the hellbender is officially listed, we need you to comment in support of protecting them through the ESA.

Hellbenders experience population decline as a result of sedimentation, water quality degradation, and habitat loss. Impacts from Hurricane Helene also displaced hellbender populations, severely degrading available habitat in some of the healthiest parts of their range. Since the ESA is so successful in protecting vulnerable species and bolstering declining populations, it is crucial that the hellbender be listed and protected as quickly as possible.

Please comment now to support listing the eastern hellbender as a federally protected species under the Endangered Species Act. Remember to make your comment your own – unique comments carry more weight with agency staff. Comments are due February 11, 2025.

MT Raleigh Report: Politics, Disaster Relief, and the Fight for Western North Carolina’s Future

What a year – in Raleigh and, of course, in Western North Carolina.

Among the many lessons those of us here in the mountains learned, again, this year is that what happens – or does not – in Raleigh has a real impact on our communities, our mountains, and our future.

Certainly, that has to be one of the takeaways about the North Carolina General Assembly’s response to the disaster that hit the mountains a couple of months ago. Since September, the legislature has approved three bills that included disaster-related funding for a total of $1.13 billion in state funds. Click here for an overview of the legislature’s efforts on the disaster to date.

The most recent of these bills is SB382, which included $225 million transferred to a state fund for disaster relief but NOT approved for any specific program or project. Leaving that transfer aside, SB382 included a mere $32 million approved for disaster relief. The remaining balance must be earmarked and approved by the legislature before it reaches WNC.

Beyond the first dozen or so pages loosely focused around disaster relief are over 100 pages of “Various Law Changes,” the real meat of SB382 designed largely to shift power away from the executive branch. This power grab disguised as disaster relief caused three WNC Republican Representatives – Mike Clampitt, Karl Gillespie, and Mark Pless – to join Democrats in voting against the bill, although it passed both the House and Senate in otherwise party-line votes. It also prompted Governor Cooper to veto the bill, but his veto was later overridden by Republican supermajorities in both chambers and became law. Despite their initial opposition to the bill, Clampitt, Gillespie, and Pless all voted to override the veto and allow the bill to become law.

So why is disaster relief getting held up? It’s certainly not because money’s tight. State Budget officials recently told a legislative committee has a whopping $9.1 billion in inappropriate reserves, including almost $4.8 billion that was in the state’s “rainy day fund” itself when Helene hit, plus $1 billion in a stabilization and inflation reserve and another $732.5 million in a emergency response/disaster reserve. Legislators could also use another $1.1 billion from savings and still remain in compliance with state law.

Gov. Cooper’s request for a $3.9 billion state set-aside for hurricane relief presumed the use of about $3.5 billion from these sources.

So, if money is not the problem, what is the hold up on state disaster relief? For their part, budget writers for the Republican majorities in the House and Senate argue that it’s smart policy to hold back state relief funding and allow federal disaster relief to make its way to the region. They worry that if state funds are used on efforts that are eligible for federal relief, the feds may not reimburse the state for its recovery efforts. GOP budget writers say it’s better to let the federal money be the first in – and the state funding the last to address needs FEMA and other federal programs do not get to. They also point out that Congress is likely to provide more money for WNC recovery before the end of 2024.

The problem with waiting, of course, is that many in WNC need help, now, for things we know that the federal government won’t pay for. Many small business owners, for example, can’t afford to take on more debt via the disaster loan programs offered by FEMA. Without direct grants, many business owners say their businesses won’t survive the disaster.

Debris removal is also an urgent need. While the federal agencies and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services have both state and federal funds to help local governments clear rivers of storm debris, these funds are often restricted to trees and other natural debris – not the cars, trucks, and tons of garbage that were swept into every river basin in the region – and are further restricted to those debris jams that pose a risk to flooding or structural damage. The funding is also distributed locally, making regional clean-up efforts more difficult to get up and running. And timing is important: our rivers and streams need to be safe and ready to use come spring when the outdoor recreational season brings thousands of visitors and their dollars to the region.

With those waters – and our outdoor economy – in mind, MountainTrue has asked legislators to fund a regional debris clean-up effort that is also supported by the outdoor recreation industry’s umbrella group, the Outdoor Recreation Coalition. Our goal is to employ those in the outdoor industry, who have been displaced by the disaster, to clear out tons of debris in time for the start of the recreation season this spring. Despite the legislature’s reluctance to use state funds for this kind of effort, MountainTrue has started a small pilot program in Madison County with private funds that will make some popular whitewater safe for paddlers early in 2025.

We plan to use this pilot to continue to lobby legislators for debris removal funding – and employment for those put out of work by the disaster. Early word in Raleigh is that legislators will take up a state-funded package of disaster recovery efforts early in their 2025 session, which begins in late January.

Looking further back into the legislature’s work this year doesn’t provide much more to celebrate. With GOP supermajorities in both the House and Senate AND a budget surplus topping $1 billion, legislative leaders were unable to muster the votes to send a revised budget for FY2024-2025 to Gov Cooper this summer. In the absence of a revised budget, they left the surplus uninvested and dozens of important conservation projects, including many in WNC, unfunded.

Unfortunately, the 2025 legislative session doesn’t provide much hope that lawmakers will address the many issues facing North Carolina. With the GOP supermajority now gone in the House, the 2025 session promises to be a drawn-out stalemate between the GOP leadership in the General Assembly and Governor-elect Josh Stein, a Democrat.

For its part, MountainTrue will continue to be in the middle of debates about disaster recovery and rebuilding, clean water and air, and sustainable development and rebuilding. Thank you for the investments you make in MountainTrue and its work in Raleigh – we couldn’t do it without you.

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