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The Scenario - Amid Hills and Hollows A quirk of Geology distinguishes the Southern Appalachian Highlands ecoregion. The portion of the Appalachian range that extends from Pennsylvania's Alleghenies south to Alabama's Red Mountain escaped glacial scouring during the last Ice Age. What remains is a unique 50-million-year-old vestige of the forest that once covered much of the Northern Hemisphere. Here, the Appalachian's uninterrupted ridges form a natural north-south highway for plants of the eastern United States. As a result, the hills and hollows of the region's forests are treasure-troves; Great Smoky Mountains National Park alone harbors more than 1400 varieties of flowering plants and 100 species of trees; Shenandoah Park trails lead to groves of 300-year-old hemlocks and 400-year-old white oaks. The forest provides habitat for an equally impressive display of wildlife, including black bears, northern flying squirrels, and an uncommon variety of salamanders. Today, most of the forest has been logged, leaving second-growth woodlands chopped up by highways, clearcuts, farms, and, most recently, urban and recreational development. In furious pursuit of nature, tourists flock to the Blue Ridge, the Smokies, and the Alleghenies--but the roads and services they encourage further fragment the region. Loss of biological diversity is just one of the challenges facing Southern Appalachia. Just 20 years ago the Washington Monument was visible from the northern end of Shenandoah National Park 75 miles away. Today air pollution in the region is so severe that visitors often can't see beyond the nearest hills. The problem is intractable: while nearby urban areas area factor, some sources of the region's airborne pollutants are as far west as the Ohio Valley. The Sierra Club envisions a clearer future for Southern Appalachia. The Club will work to protect our National Forests from the ravages of logging and roadbuilding, protect our wild and special places from the damage caused by coal-fired generating plants, and protect the integrity of special places such as the Great Smokies National Park, the "Yosemite of the East." This will be a mountain of work, but Southern Appalachian Highlands activists are committed to preserving a legacy that even glaciers couldn't undo. What We're Going to Do...And How We're Going to Do it Statement of Purpose: The purpose of the Southern Appalachian Highlands EcoRegion Task Force of the Sierra Club is to work through its constituent chapters to celebrate, protect and restore the biodiversity of the Southern Appalachian Highlands, and to educate the public about this valuable historic and natural resource. Our Campaigns The Southern Appalachian National Forest Protection Campaign: Working with our cxonstituent Chapters, partner organizations throughout the region, and coordinating with the Sierra Club National Forest Protection Campaign, SAHE brings resources and expertise to forest protection efforts. Currently, the National Forests in five states in the Southern Appalachian region are completing the revision of their management plans, documents which will guide the management of these Forests for at least the next fifteen years. Despite consistent pressure from the public over the last seven years to produce plans which will protect the rich diversity of these special places, the US Forest Service has produced plans which are "bidness as usual," opening up even larger areas to commercial logging and roadbuilding. Learn MORE The Great Smokies Campaign: Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most heavily visited of our country’s National Parks with more than 9 million visitors annually. This region of incomparable beauty and biological diversity has earned it the recognition of the United Nations as an International Biosphere Reserve, and it is also designated as a World Heritage Site. But the park’s scenic and biological attributes have not spared it from various threats over the years. At the present time there are four major proposals that pose serious harm to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, including the proposed North Shore Road. This road would slice through 33 miles of the Great Smoky Mountains, destroying habitat and water quality in it’s wake. The Sierra Club seeks to protect the Great Smoky Mountains National Park from further development and maintain its existing natural beauty for future generations. The Sierra Club seeks to affect change legislatively and administratively by activating volunteers in the public process, public education and media work. READ MORE The Southern Appalachian Clean Air Campaign: Throughout the Southern Appalachians, areas far removed from urban centers and transportation corridors suffer the ill effects of air pollution, largely the result of downwind acid deposition from large, coal-fired utilities outside the area. Airborne pollutants travel the air currents many miles before bouncing up against the Appalachian ridges and dropping to the surface, the result of whiuch is that many of our mountain forests and streams are suffering and dying from pollution and the disease and insects that attack stress-weakened trees. Many of our mountain streams-the lifeblood of our communities and recreation destinations for millions of Americans-are unable to support native trout and are rendered sterile. We can do better protecting the Appalachian's natural resources from the ravages of industrial pollution. READ MORE Recommended Reading Sierra Club Entities Alabama Chapter Up to Top |
Action Alert: The Bush administration has proposed rules that threaten
our national forests with more logging and road building.