|
Driving up the North Carolina coast it's apparent our landscape is tremendously diverse.
It’s shocking how the beauty is juxtaposed with destruction—we’ve
seen a lot of that the last few days we’ve spent in our focal conservation
areas along the SE coast. In the Green
Swamp it was painfully obvious. One side of the road there is mystical,
majestic longleaf pine savannah which takes you away to another world. On the other side of the road, and comprising
much of the tens of thousands of acres that makes up the Green Swamp, is
International Paper land dominated by single-species pine plantations—not a
pretty sight. It’s completely bizarre,
the trees are actually in rows and there is not wildlife to be seen. It’s sad and shocking.
Lake
Waccamaw is the same way,
this amazing area is surrounded by IP land—it’s as if the paper company is just
waiting for someone to take their guard down so they can sweep in and steel it
away to make more packaging for fast food restaurants.
Luckily, there are people who love these areas, whose
culture is defined by these areas, and who will do anything to protect these
areas. There are people like us, and
people like you who hold these companies accountable when they attempt to make
such atrocious acts.
The goal of the weekend was to make it up the coast from the
Green Swamp
area up to Virginia
to the Zuni Pine Barrens and The Great Dismal Swamp—both areas which represent
the forests we are working to protect.
Along the way we plan to talk to folks about the impacts of packaging on
Southern forests.
Today we made it Pettigrew
Lake after a beautiful drive through
rural North Carolina,
past farms and forests alike. Pettigrew
is home to some of the last remaining old growth in the South. A lot of it was damaged in 2003 during
Hurricane Isabel, but a lot of it remains standing majestically. Check out the photos, I'm still uploading them though. Along the road driving into Pettigrew Lake
are rows of 150 year old cypress trees—astonishing.
Joshua with the Virginia Sierra Club met up with us today,
and after camping this lovely evening we plan to spend Sunday heading to
Virginia to see one of the most unique ecosystems in the South—the Zuni Pine
Barrens (if we can find it—it’s not on any map so hopefully we find it before
IP does!)
Till tomorrow,
Eva
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
