Tennessee has a shot at its first new wilderness in nearly a quarter-century, thanks to legislation introduced last week by Republican Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker.
The "Tennessee Wilderness Act of 2010" would protect nearly 20,000 acres of Cherokee National Forest, expanding five existing wilderness areas and creating the new 9,038-acre Upper Bald River Wilderness. All the areas were recommended for wilderness status by the Forest Service in the agency's 2004 management plan for the 640,000-acre Cherokee forest, whose boundaries extend both north and south of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
"I grew up hiking in the mountains of East Tennessee and know firsthand that these beautiful landscapes should be preserved for generations to come," Alexander said in a statement, adding that the bill will help preserve "some of the most pristine areas in Tennessee and will strengthen the legacy of Tennessee's natural heritage."
There are currently 11 designated wilderness areas in the Cherokee forest covering 66,000 acres, but no new wilderness has been designated since 1986.
Jeff Hunter, field organizer for Tennessee Wild, a coalition of organizations backing the wilderness proposal, said the designation of the Upper Bald River Wilderness is particularly important because the area encompasses an undisturbed watershed. "The opportunity to protect an intact watershed doesn't come along every day, certainly not in the East," he said.
A variety of stakeholders support the wilderness designation in east Tennessee, including sportsmen, business owners, local lawmakers and religious leaders. An independent survey conducted in January found nearly three-quarters of the region's voters supported more wilderness in the Cherokee forest.
"This legislation will help safeguard a resource that hundreds of thousands of people enjoy every year through various outdoor recreation activities," Sutton Bacon, CEO of the Nantahala Outdoor Center in nearby Bryson City, N.C., said in a statement.
"In a time of growing populations and shrinking natural areas, wilderness areas such as these represent an increasingly critical spiritual resource for people of all faith traditions," added Robin Gottfried, executive director of the Center for Religion and Environment at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn.
Will Skelton, a retired Knoxville attorney and longtime wilderness activist who coordinated efforts in the 1980s to designate wilderness in the Cherokee forest, expressed delight in seeing the additional areas submitted for the highest level of government protection.
The six areas are currently managed as wilderness study areas. "I'm truly happy to see that hopefully we'll finally get those areas protected," Skelton said, noting that the protections offered by the current forest management plan could be changed in the plan's next iteration.
"Only a wilderness designation from Congress offers permanent protection," he said.
The Cherokee National Forest stretches from Chattanooga to Bristol along the North Carolina border. It lies at the heart of the Southern Appalachian mountain range, which is home to more than 20,000 species of plants and animals.
While remote and densely forested in many areas, the Southern Appalachians have come under increasing environmental stress in recent decades because of population growth, traffic congestion and sprawl-like development patterns around the region's primary cities and Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which hosts between 8 million and 10 million visitors per year.
Congress began protecting wilderness areas in the Cherokee forest in 1975, with additional wilderness being established by the Tennessee Wilderness Acts of 1984 and 1986. Since the lands proposed in the current wilderness bill are owned by the Forest Service, the legislation would have no effect on privately owned lands and will cause no change in access for the public, officials said.
Click here for a map of the proposed wilderness areas.
Gable is a freelance journalist based in Colorado Springs, Colo.
----------------------------
