Blue Ridge Country March/April 2024 - 23

BOOK NOTE
Kami Ahrens, editor. The Foxfire
Book of Appalachian Women:
Stories of Landscape and
Community in the Mountain
South. (University of North
Carolina Press, 2023). 268 pp.
oxfire-the oral history
project dating back to 1966
in Rabun County, Georgia-
has over the years produced a
good number of books. The list
continues with Kami Ahrens'
newly published " Foxfire Book
of Appalachian Women, " a
collection of 21 interview
narratives.
Some of the
women included
in the new volume
were born at the
end of the 19th century:
Their stories
are from a different
time in our mountains.
Women like Maude
Conley Shope, who swore " because
she felt like it " and built
her life on being " honest and
truthful, " riding her mule to
town rather than learning how
to drive. Addie Parker Norton,
born in 1891, devoted her life
to raising her family and carrying
on shape-note singing.
Some of the women interviewed
by Ahrens for the book
were born much later-in the
1970s and '80s-with wideranging
cultural backgrounds
and jobs. Women like Dakota
Brown, who oversees educational
programming at the
Museum of the Cherokee
Indian and works to preserve
Cherokee culture and language.
And Sandra Macias
Glichowski, who owns a toy
store in Clayton, Georgia, and
says, " I don't think I've ever felt
as free in any other places as
here. Or inspired. "
F
Every woman's voice in the
book is deeply grounded in
place, and the community built
in this newest Foxfire volume
is celebratory and strong. It's
a beautiful blend of past and
present, with the future a
bright possibility.
-JOAN VANNORSDALL
First Proposal of its Kind
USFS Plans to Protect Old Growth
I
Conservation efforts affect
national forests in four Blue
Ridge states.
n a historic move, the U.S. Forest Service
announced a plan to conserve
and restore mature and old-growth
forests on tens of millions of acres
under its management-including several
national forests in the Blue Ridge
region. The agency has proposed a
nationwide plan amendment-the first
in its history-to guide future actions
pertaining to old-growth and mature
trees on all national forests.
In the Blue Ridge region, the plan
covers national forests in the Nantahala-Pisgah
in North Carolina, George
Washington-Jefferson in Virginia,
Cherokee in Tennessee and Monongahela
in West Virginia. The proposal
stems from President Biden's Executive
Order last April to
conserve old-growth
forests, which cover
approximately 17%
of America's national
forests.
Old growth
and mature
forests
" Old-growth forests
are a vital part
of our ecosystems
and a special cultural
would gain
protections
in a USFS
plan.
resource, " said Agriculture Secretary
Tom Vilsack. In national forests, oldgrowth
contains headwaters for drinking
water of downstream communities
and provides recreation opportunities
including hunting, hiking and paddling.
The U.S Forest Service has done an
initial inventory of old-growth and mature
forest and will continue to refine
its research, assess the threats to these
ecosystems and engage the public in
finalizing the nationwide amendment.
" We want protecting old-growth to
be a big part of the agency's job, " said
Sam Evans with the Southern Environmental
Law Center. " I can't overstate
how important that is. "
fs.usda.gov/about-agency/newsroom/
releases/usda-proposes-first-its-kind-national-forest-plan-amendment-conserve
-CAT
MCCUE
Y
35
YEARS AGO
" In 1978, President Carter
signed the bill that concluded
a six-year effort to
gain National River status
for West Virginia's New River
Gorge. The land is a collection
of state parks and
national land. "
-F.N, STEWART, IN HIS PIECE
" THE ANCIENT NEW, " IN THE
MARCH/APRIL, 1989 ISSUE
ABOUT LANDS THAT WOULD
IN 2021 BECOME A NATIONAL
PARK.
MARCH/APRIL 2024 23
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http://fs.usda.gov/about-agency/newsroom/releases/usda-proposes-first-its-kind-national-forest-plan-amendment-conserve
Blue Ridge Country March/April 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country March/April 2024
