Conservation

CONSERVATION by Phyllis Loman

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Fantastic News: Fires Creek Rim Trail – Recipient of $5,000 Grant! The votes are in and counted, and we can surely say that the votes you cast back in October 2008 made a difference! Fires Creek Rim Trail is one of ten hiking trails throughout the U.S. to benefit from the Save the Trails Grant program. Nature Valley Grants was established to protect and maintain hiking trails across America and to address the waning federal and state funding for trails. Many prominent areas located across the United States were in the top twenty. Our Fires Creek Rim Trail was the only North Carolina trail to make the list! Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition, a regional non-profit organization whose mission is to protect and restore the wild lands, waters, native forests and ecosystems of the Southern Appalachian landscape, submitted the nomination for Fires Creek Rim Trail. SAFC’s submission stated that 350 to 400 hours of volunteer trail maintenance will be performed and a campaign instituted to help build public support for the permanent protection of the Fires Creek Rim Trail system. MHH is a member of SAFC as well as other organizations whose mission is to protect our forests. It is with these partnerships that we find that we "can make a difference."

For further information: www.smokymountainsentinel.com/news/2008/1022/Front_Page/008.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/new/America-Votes-10-Hiking-bw-14944865.html

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On March 25, 2009, Congress granted permanent protection to 53,000 acres of the South's most pristine national forest lands--a victory resulting from more than five years of sustained advocacy by environmental groups.

The Virginia Ridge and Valley Act cleared its last legislative hurdle when the House passed it, 285 to 140, as part of the Omnibus Public Lands Act. Now signed into law, the bipartisan measure will safeguard 43,000 acres in southwest Virginia's Jefferson National Forest as Wilderness or Wilderness Study Areas, including seven new stand-alone tracts. Another 10,000 acres will be preserved as two new National Scenic Areas. Nationwide, the bill designates more than 2 million acres of federal lands as Wilderness.

"This law ensures that some of our last wild places will never be disturbed by logging, mining, or road building, and that they will always be available for hiking, hunting, fishing, and other recreational uses," said David Carr, Southern Environmental Law Center General Counsel and public forest expert. "This is a natural legacy we can enjoy now and pass on to future generations."

The full story is available at www.SouthernEnvironment.org .

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These addresses need to be updated (1/23/09):

POLITICAL LEADERS' ADDRESSES FOR MHH

GEORGIA

Senator Saxby Chambliss

416 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510

202-224-3521

http://chambliss.senate.gov/Contact/default.cfm?pagemode=1

Senator Johnny Isakson

120 Russell Senate Office Building