There once lived a forest.
It was a nearly unbroken forest that covered the eastern third of our nation - a natural community that had sustained itself without interruption for over 40 million years and boasted a complexity second only to the tropical rainforest. Then, in a remarkably short time, our ancestors took the forest to the ground, before they could know the immensity of what they had lost.
We must courageously face the fragmentation and diminishment of this once great forest and turn loss into decision. The old-growth forest is just a thought form away. We are the children of the children of the children of the people who cut the forest down. We can be the generation that chooses to bring the forest back.
Our work is simple and straightforward - to buy and permanently preserve the best of the best forest communities still remaining in the Appalachian heartland - through fee simple acquisitions and the donation of conservation easements
Wild Rock Canyon Preserve in West Virginia - an aerial view by David Ackerman
The ultimate investment in Community
The Earth is exceptionally fond of communities, so much so that she covered nearly every square inch of her land with them, and they fill much of her waters as well. And she has been focusing on community-building for over three billion years. Individuals are ephemeral, and species come and go over geologic time. It is only the communities that endure, literally for millions of years. Only now - after surviving eons of droughts, volcanic eruptions, glaciers, forest fires, and continental collisions – is America’s Eastern Hardwood Forest community in trouble. The reason, of course, is us. And yet, the same species that can fragment, diminish, and destroy can choose to heal, reconnect, and sustain. Here at the Arc, nature is our guide. If her highest priority is to devote the entire planet’s resources in community-making, then, here at the Arc of Appalachia, we wish to join her in this work.
The Arc of Appalachia represents the will of many people across our country who labor to put the pieces of the broken forest community back together again.