SELC Turns Logging Plan Into Restoration Project

When the 383-acre Stoney Creek logging project threatened a possible old-growth area of the Cherokee National Forest, SELC and the Western North Carolina Alliance investigated. What we found was 119 acres of rare and ecologically important old growth, and we convinced the U.S. Forest Service to abandon their logging plan. Instead, the Forest Service has agreed to restore a native shortleaf pine and oak forest on a former mining site where the forest has been heavily degraded. The Forest Service also agreed not to add a new road into a specially designated roadless area traversed by the Appalachian Trail.