National Scenic Area Proposed

            Wild South has been working with the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project and the Southern Environmental Law Center other to develop a " Grandfather National Scenic Area" in North Carolina.   

           The effort started last summer, when the citizens of Blowing Rock voted to find a permanent solution to the Forest Service issuing contracts to cut large tracts of trees around the town to make "early successsional habitat". 

         The area of about 28,000 acres would connect several protected areas near the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Pisgah National Forest.

Once Again, Courts    Rule  that    Bush Acted     Illegally

       U.S. Forest Service can not implement the management regulations that the Bush administration put in place in 2005.  They violate three laws, a federal judge in California ruled on March 31, 2007. The regulations tried to eliminate protections for wildlife, and water and removed public participation in making decisions on national forest management, and a key regulatory guarantee for wildlife viability in the national forests.

Read more on this link: Court throws out Bush attempts to eliminate protections on national forests.

Once Again, Plan to

Sell off National Forest Land is Defeated

              The Administration has proposed selling off 300,000 acres of land in the national forests twice to pay local communities for timber sales shared money.   But the system works, and another bad idea was rejected.

Read about selling off our lands

California Court Says Bush Did Not Follow the Rules on the

Roadless Rule

        A federal district court ordered reinstatement of the Roadless Rule, and reversed the Bush administration's efforts to open these last great natural areas to development interests. The Forest Service was ordered to stop work on 84 oil and gas projects and an Idaho road project because they violate the Roadless Rule. 

          The Rule protects 50 million acres of national forests and grasslands from road building, logging, and development.  This is a great  victory for all Americans

             Read the whole story:

     Bush Tries and Fails to Break the Law

  "Road  to Nowhere" Goes             Nowhere
        Congressman Heath Shuler defeated Charles Taylor, who championed the boondoggle $600 million "North Shore Road" on the north side of Fontana Lake in western North Carolina.

         Shuler listened to the people and used common sense to oppose the road, thus avoiding huge costs to the taxpayer to build 34 miles of highway and bridges through a very vulnerable area of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.
     The cash settlement to Swain County of 54 million dollars was preferred by local governments, and has been applied for.
Learn more about the

North Shore Boondoggle.

Read more on "Salvage Logging" at:

What the scientists wrote about the Walden Bill.

Find out more at:

American Lands - - Walden Bill Myths and Facts

"Salvage logging" is really

"Cut and Run."

TVA Board Votes to Protect the Shores of the Tennessee

      The new and improved Tennessee Valley Authority board recently voted 7 to 1 to start protecting the shores of the reservoirs from development, sighting that it is in the public interest to preserve these open spaces and protect the shoreline and water resources.  The TVA appropriated 1.3 million acres, and control only about 293,000 acres of land.

TVA Board Votes to Protect Shorelines