http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/jun/20/new-cherokee-wilderness-areas-will-be-gifts-to/
Perhaps you have hiked along part of the Benton MacKaye Trail, the nearly 300-mile-long footpath extending from Springer Mountain in Georgia, through some of the most beautiful wild country in the Tennessee and North Carolina mountains, to Davenport Gap on the northern edge of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This volunteer-built trail honors MacKaye, whose vision resulted in creation of the world-famous Appalachian Trail.
MacKaye was one of the towering figures in American conservation, a founder of The Wilderness Society (at a time when he lived in Knoxville and worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority), and the father of modern regional planning. "Let us by all means have our city planning," he wrote, "but let us not forget its roots in its vast hinterland."
To MacKaye, the very idea of a livable city was inextricably tied to a vision for the wider landscape around it. Citizens of Knoxville can grasp this immediately by thinking of the thousand ways the enviable livability of our city is linked to the nearby Cherokee National Forest, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area..
All of this explains why we should all be pleased that U.S.Sen. Lamar Alexander, an avid hiker himself, has introduced legislation to establish several worthy areas of the Cherokee National Forest as wilderness areas. Alexander's legislation is cosponsored by U.S. Sen. Bob Corker and has already won the support of a diverse group of local and regional outdoor, sportsman, and conservation groups, civic and faith leaders, and small business owners.
It may help for me to emphasize what this proposed legislation is not. It is in no way a "land grab." After all, you and I and all Americans already own all of the land involved, as part of the Cherokee National Forest. And keep in mind the modest scale of the proposal. Today there are 11 wilderness areas in the national forest, which stretches the length of our eastern border from the Georgia line to the Virginia line. The national forest comprises some 640,000 acres, so those 11 established wilderness areas amount to just 10 percent of the total and to less than 1 percent of the total area of Tennessee. If the new legislation passes Congress, it will add 19,568 acres, primarily by improving the boundary locations of the already-established areas to assure more complete protection of watersheds and wildlife habitat, and by establishing the new Upper Bald River wilderness. That would mean that 13 percent of the Cherokee National Forest would have this highest, strongest form of nature protection - still less than 1 percent of our state.
The lands proposed as wilderness in the new legislation were identified in the open process by which the U.S. Forest Service plans for the future uses of each national forest, and there were opportunities for public participation in that planning every step of the way.
Ah, but what do we gain? We gain a reasonable expanse of forests and mountains where you or I and our families can find peace and quiet (mechanized vehicles are not allowed in wilderness areas), and where the shyest creatures of nature can find refuge, too. We gain a bankable economic asset in a part of Tennessee where tourism (including hunting and fishing, which are allowed in these lands) is a vital and growing part of our economy, and where our visitors like to drive the mountain roads and gaze out over unbroken forested slopes and valleys.
Finally, we gain something intangible, but of immense value. This is our opportunity to be good stewards, to recognize that in our lifetimes we could watch all of the forest be developed, but we would then leave no gift of wild nature to be enjoyed by all the generations of Tennesseans that will come after us.
I firmly believe those generations of the future will give thanks for our generosity of spirit in thinking of their interests as inextricably bound up with our own, and for preserving these living samples of Tennessee's forest heritage for them.
Victor Ashe, former mayor of Knoxville, served as Ambassador to Poland and, in 2004 received the Pugsley Medal for his long standing commitment to the improvement of the environment, parks and greenways in the city of Knoxville.
