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The Unprotected Wildlands of the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests
In all six of the national forests in the Southern Appalachians there remain, sometimes against all the odds, pockets of forested land that are largely wild and without roads. Some of these places are permanently protected within the National Wilderness Preservation System. Others are along protected Wild and Scenic Rivers corridors and still others enjoy some safety because they fall within management categories now considered unsuitable for road building and logging.
But many important tracts are not adequately protected and thus remain at risk to future timber harvests. These are the subject of this new edition of North Carolina’s Mountain Treasures. The report focuses on the unprotected wildlands of the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests. The Wilderness Society and its partners have identified seven landscape conservation areas in these two forests that deserve protection and urgently need it. These areas contribute much to the health and viability of the globally significant Southern Appalachian ecosystem and we discuss those contributions, too.
This site briefly looks at each area, and describes its important wilderness, wildlife, scenic and recreational values and resources. Maps accompany each description. These areas comprise some of the wildest and least roaded lands in western North Carolina. Certainly, there are other areas in this part of the state that are, by any reckoning, important natural areas- places that are, and deserve to be, Mountain Treasures. But we have chosen to highlight in this report areas that lack long- term protection and thus remain at risk.
