Blue Ridge Country - March/April 2019 - 66

GUEST COLUMN
By DAVID ARTHUR RAMSEY

Preserving a Hidden Jewel

David Arthur Ramsey is an outdoor photographer, writer and
conservationist, born and raised in Unicoi County, Tennessee. His work
has been published locally, regionally and nationally and is often associated
with preserving threatened lands and waters of the southern Appalachians.
Field and Stream Magazine and the Toyota Motor Company named him
the National Hero of Conservation in 2011 for his leadership in saving the
10,000-acre Rocky Fork watershed in northeastern Tennessee.

n the mountains of northeastern Tennessee, where I
was born and raised and now live again, lies a high,
10,000-acre wild area known simply as Rocky Fork.
Five generations of my family lived at the foot of
the area and, along with other local families, spent
much of their lives there hunting, fishing, camping
and enjoying it.
I wasn't born near Rocky Fork as were my father, his
father before him and his before him, but I grew up only
a dozen or so miles away, in the same county, and went
there often to visit my Ramsey relations. It was during
that early, formative period in my life that a deep connection was created between Rocky Fork and my young
psyche; a connection formed largely from my visits there
and countless family stories about its mythical woods,
waters and wild places.
I grew up, moved away for several years, and then finally returned to my native Unicoi County for good in
the 1990s. It was then that I learned that Rocky Fork was
being considered as a possible location for a massive,
gated mountain development. This was terrible news to
me, not only because of my long family connection to
the land, but because I had learned over the years that to
conservationists, Rocky Fork was considered a rare place
of the highest ecological, historical and recreational importance within the greater Blue Ridge.

The story of Rocky Fork is a
powerful example of what can
happen when people find common
ground and work together.
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For nearly the next decade, under the local leadership of noted Tennessee lawyer and conservationist, Ed
E. Williams III, an all-out effort was made to get Rocky
Fork transferred to public ownership. Unfortunately, a
deal was never finalized, and in 2004 Ed, Rocky Fork's
great champion, lost his battle with cancer.
However, to his eternal credit, Ed Williams had done
an incredible job of laying the foundation for Rocky
Fork's preservation by uniting all the sportsmen, hikers, trout fishers, horsemen and conservationists he
could muster to let state and federal officials know how
important the area had long been to them all. So when
the word spread in 2005 that Rocky Fork's owner was
shopping for buyers again, it was a matter of rallying
the forces and making it known to anyone and everyone we could that this was our final chance to save
what Ed Williams liked to call the "last crown jewel of
the Blue Ridge."
Thanks to the amazing leadership of The Southern
Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, The Conservation
Fund, Appalachian Trail Conservancy, U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander and a host of other key individuals and
groups (which I refer to as "The Champions of Rocky
Fork"), taking that final chance paid off. After three
years of hard, never-say-die work and securing the funding for its $40 million price tag, the dream of preserving
and permanently protecting the Rocky Fork Watershed
was realized on December 15, 2008.
Now, 2,000 acres of Rocky Fork make up Tennessee's
new Rocky Fork State Park, with the remaining 8,000
acres being added to the Cherokee National Forest.
Hence, the story of Rocky Fork is a powerful example of
what can happen when people find common ground,
regardless of their ideology or political leanings, and
work together to make something big and good and important happen for themselves, their communities and
for future generations of Americans.

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Blue Ridge Country - March/April 2019

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