Ryan Kramp
Dr. Brian W. Okey
LBST 499
9 March 2012
"An illegitimate walk in the woods to remember" In this paper I am going to discuss the various controversial issues pertaining the two sources I read titled Crimes Against Nature and A walk in the woods. I will be discussing and diagnosing the transformation of landscapes and communities within Appalachia from an ecological, economic, and geographic view points. In correlation with the different systems and properties practiced by the communities within Appalachia, I will delve deeper into the more specific subcategories with the intention of making the information easier to understand. The primary ecological impacts that will be addressed are exploitists, mountaintop removal and its repercussions, annihilation of wildlife and endangered species, and the destruction of the surrounding natural environments driven by human goals. On the economic side of things the primary topics of discussion will be income, living conditions, isolationism, homogeneity, maximization of overall utility, timber and natural resources exploitation without resilience. Geographic view points, the final topic of discussion will pertain to environmental monitoring systems, human habitation, evolving spatial patterns, and the outcome of relative location isolation. A major issue behind the driving force of Appalachia's ecological impacts starts with the exploitation of natural resources. Timber is one of the primary resources Appalachia has to offer and it began being harvested in the very early ages. Around 1930 the federal government decided to begin buying acreage in Kentucky. Having the land already stripped, timber companies were the first to sell disappearing leaving the land with little hope for resilience or profits for decades to come. Shortly after during the Depression, substantial amounts of poor farmers were forced to sell their property to the government for pennies an acre in order to just survive and provide for their families. Mountaintop Removal has also severely affected the ecology of Appalachia in many of the same ways timber exploitation did. Mountaintop removal has destroyed more than 500 mountains encompassing roughly 1.2 million acres of central and southern Appalachia. The repercussions from these staggering numbers has polluted substantial amounts of vital Appalachian headwater streams due to mining waste. In 1972 the Clean Water Act paved a bright future and brought a feeling of security to many. However, in 2002 the George W. Bush Administration reclassified mining waste as permissible "fill material", which in essence created a loophole to allow the continuation of dumping mountaintop removal waste into streams. Combined with the Surface Mining and Reclamation Act, coal companies are not required to reforest the land as part of its post-mining reclamation requirements, the rich ecosystems are regularly replaced with non-native grasses providing little room for resilience or sustainability. In some circumstances full reforestation may not occur for hundreds of years ignoring the importance of preservation and conservation of structural attributes. The natural glades, coves, and hollows which support subsistence livestock grazing and game resources became polluted and undesirable for the natural habitat. All of the above mentioned processes deter the ability for wildlife to be able to survive especially those that are specific to the Appalachian region, including in total "233 species of mammals, Twenty-two endangered or threatened species live in the Daniel Boone, more than in any other Appalachian forest" (Dobie, 54). The majority of this destruction is human driven with very little consideration of crucial system properties like stability, sustainability, equitability, and most importantly efficiency, all necessities for a stable profitable economic future. Appalachian Kentucky has task force known as High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas(HIDTA) and they are considered a highly successful crime busting unit. Pot is Kentucky's biggest cash crop and it is mostly grown on public land. While the HIDTA team is spending countless amounts of time, effort, and most importantly money in an attempt to put a stop in the amount of illegal drugs being grown there is a much more important issue for the well-being and future of Appalachia. The "area's illiteracy rate (48.4 percent, the highest in the nation), average individual income ($12,000), and the morbidity rates (Appalchian Kentucky has the highest death rate in the nation from all cancers)" (Dobie, 59). With such low projections of income, education, and life span the future for Appalachian Kentucky continues to get darker. While these stats are well known it appears very little is being done in an effort to change it. The part that is hypocritical to me that they are concerned about doing five or six jumps a day, yet one rarely ever sees a fine because many times the people who grow it have absolutely nothing to confiscate or pay the fine with. I am having a hard time understanding why they are spending so much money regulating and preventing these almost impossible to find small patches of marijuana plants usually only containing around 8 plants each with little to no chance of connecting it back to the original owner. Legal marijuana growing and farming is a new rising industry and in the small scheme of things I believe may be a good direction economically for Appalachian Kentucky to try. Instead of paying so much money to prevent it and succeeding at low rates, why not try to instead control it? If regulated properly it has the opportunity to bring in profitable returns and create new jobs for a severely unemployed impoverish relaying hopes of a positive future. The feds own roughly around 80% of the land in these counties and pay next to no taxes on it. This results in little to no funding for important aspects to society such as schools, policing, health care, swage, water, and roads. Regulating a community with such a lackadaisical approach is mind boggling to me. How do they expect the community to fix its self when they are already left with zero resources to begin with and are only being held down and deterred by the government? The profits earned from legal growing marijuana plants could be reinvested back into the regulation to ensure a tight knit production is happening instead of spending more money to find them and stop them. Also the growers they do catch and take to federal court usually end up in a prison for sometime which in the end costs more tax dollars to the citizens of America. The fact that Appalachian Kentucky is so isolated it makes a hard job for HIDTA to remain a close watch on what exactly is happening. With it being so isolated I think it would be an ideal place to legalize marijuana production, which would also help with the notable issue of homogeneity the area possesses. Issues pertaining to the geographic perspective of Appalachia are widespread and numerous. Hemlocks everywhere along the trail and far beyond are disappearing by an aphid accidentally carried over from Asia. An organization known as the National Park Service, stated sadly that they simply could just not afford to treat the trees (Bryson, 146). While the organization hoped and was correct some of the hemlocks would endure a natural recovery and remain alive these actions don't provide a bright outlook for sustainability and severely delay the ability for resilience if any remains at all. While the human habitation seems to be relatively close between one and another resident of the community the relative location isolation tends to bring in some tourist. While the numbers are still tiny because hiking tends to be avoided by the majority, it still produces income and creates jobs for Appalachia. The management of the shelters and the all around marketing of the trail and restaurants around it has been somewhat of a success even though poorly maintained and managed. While I understand people don't want the trail to be swamped with restaurants or attractions because of the nature side of hiking, the ones that are already in place and successful need innovate new ideas to attract more hikers and bring in more revenue. The government could play a large role in making this happen as long as they do it carefully enough to not scare away the original die hard hikers. In conclusion of reading these two articles I feel like I became fairly educated on a topic I had very little knowledge about. After doing the research and reading what the authors have to say I found the whole situation to end up being very interesting to me. From the ecological aspects pertaining to the humans drive to strip the land of timber and other resources leaving little to no room for re-growth to the aftermath consequences Appalachians are dealing with currently. The economic perspective was my favorite being a finance major and an economic minor I really enjoyed seeing the different opinions about who should be doing what, with what money and the choices that were made, resulting in both positive and negative aspects for both sides of the argument is a fiasco. They need some serious economic change and I firmly believe it starts with the process of how they are going about doing things and the regulations they currently have need to be revised and tuned properly to the human habitat that resides there. The isolationism plays a roll on both sides for Appalachia hurting them in being able to embrace diversity but also drawing in tourist and outsiders with money. People who are curious much like me to see the everlasting beautiful sights and natural phenomenon's Appalachia has to offer.