Live from the Green Swamp--one of the top ten ecoregions in N. America.
Yesterday in the Green
Swamp in coastal North Carolina I
experienced something new and amazing. Not like anything I had ever seen or ever even
imagined, the Venus flytraps were in bloom with their white flowers bobbing in
the wind, the pitcher plants reaching to my waist, orchids, irises and
wiregrass; the long leaf pine savannah ecosystem is amazing. Bending down and staring into a pitcher plant
I was transported to another world. Irregular texture and strange snout like
lips and strange blends of colors, the plant is so strange and wonderful. Weirdly – I was transported to some distant
solar system just beyond Star Wars Tatooine where young Luke Skywalker worked on
his uncle’s moisture farm. The plants of
this ecosystem are out of this world.
Of course, the long leaf pine savannah ecosystem was one dominant across
millions of acres of the coastal mid-Atlantic region. Now reduced to just a
miniscule 2% of its historic size, it still has the power to take you to a
galaxy far far away. Go down to
Brunswick County, NC and experience the wonder of it this piece of the
Southern Forest for yourself.
Back on the ground,
yesterday evening we had a great turunout for the presentation for the
Friends of the Green Swamp (FOGS) in Whiteville, NC. These cool folks have come together working to
protect a place they love. Through
their efforts, the have so far successfully fended off a misguided
effort to site a regional mega-dump in the heart of the Green Swamp.
They are an amazing group of people doing good work and we are looking
forward to workign with a lot of them into the future. Many thanks to the efforts of
FOGS!!!!
At the meeting we talked about our Packaging Campaign and how we will
work to connect people and corporations to this special place and to the big
International Paper Riegelwood Mill that has sucked up wood fiber and driven
industrial logging that has done so much ecological damage in this region. After such a great day we now have a much
richer story to tell and even more to fight for….
From the swamp
Andrew
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