Mainspring Conservation Trust

Stewards of the Southern Blue Ridge

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Cherokee One Feather: Cherokee cultural panels unveiled for Cowee site kiosks

September 25, 2018

Chief Richard Sneed

By Scott McKie, B.P.
September 24, 2018

COWEE – Panels featuring Cherokee history of the Cowee Mound and area were unveiled during a ceremony near the site on the morning of Saturday, Sept. 22.  Part of the Cherokee Cultural Corridor, the unveiling and cultural kiosks were the result of a partnership between the Nikwasi Initiative, the Mainspring Conservation Trust, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and entities such as the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, and the Cowee School Arts & Heritage Center – groups that came together collectively as Mountain Partners. 

“It truly is a great day today,” said Principal Chief Richard G. Sneed.  “We have had so many great partners in this project – folks with vision for the project of a Cultural Corridor.  For thousands of years, prior to European contact, our ancestors dwelled here, and they had a rich culture, a vibrant culture with a complex religious and spiritual system, complex political systems, and complex economic and trade systems.” 

Read the entire article here.

 

Filed Under: News

Smoky Mountain News: A mile-high view: State-level squabble stalls Jackson County conservation project:

September 20, 2018

By Holly Kays
September 19, 2018

To call the view stretching out below the 5,462-foot bald “spectacular,” “impressive” or even “jaw-dropping” would be an understatement.

It was as clear a day as had been spotted in the mountains this rainy year, skies blue and cloudless ahead of the slowly moving remains of Hurricane Florence. The sun shone on Cherokee to the west, Bryson City visible just a couple folds of land beyond it and the Nantahala Mountains rimming the horizon south and west of the small towns.

In front of me, but so, so far below, Skyland Drive undulated on its way into Sylva, where smoke from Jackson Paper puffed gently into the air and the mountains bordering Catamount Peak barely hid Cullowhee and Western Carolina University. Sylva’s Pinnacle Park covered mountainsides immediately to the east, Waterrock Knob rising up just beyond that and the Blue Ridge Parkway hugging the Plott Balsams between Cherokee and Maggie Valley, which was invisible behind the mile-high mountain range.

Read the entire article here.

Filed Under: News, Press Room

The Laurel of Asheville: Land Protection Organizations Rally to Preserve Federal Funding

August 27, 2018

By: Emma Castleberry
August 21, 2018

Credit: Bob Appleget

If your summer activities have included a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway, a camping trip in the Pisgah National Forest or a hike in the Highlands of Roan, you have (perhaps unknowingly) benefited from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). The LWCF provides federal funding for conservation projects that protect the lands that Americans use for recreational outdoor activities. “The LWCF was established by Congress in 1964 to address the alarming loss of wild and natural land due to the rapid spread of suburban sprawl,” says Jay Leutze, president of the board of the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy (SAHC). “Conservation leaders were worried that we were losing our collective ‘backyard’—the places where Americans camp, hunt, fish and get away from the stress of modern life.” As part of its design, the LWCF was assigned a portion of revenues from off-shore drilling. No taxpayer dollars are used for the fund.

Read the full story here.

Filed Under: News, Press Room Tagged With: conservation

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