MindSpinner

If my great grandfather had not been a generous man and an avid conservationist, one of my family might have built a house right here. Or a campground. Or whatever.

But my great grandfather loved the land of North Georgia (tales abound), and he wanted it restored and preserved as part of this nation’s birthright. During the course of his career, the Forest Service acquired much of the land that is now the Chatahoochee and Cherokee National Forests. Some of the land he gave himself, like Woody Gap (pictured above, photo by Jack Anthony), near the beginning of the Appalachian Trail in Georgia. Every time I walk there, every time I look to the valley or climb the closed road to the abandoned fire tower on Black Mountain, I am moved and grateful that this beauty belongs to all of us. I’ve never felt as if my birthright had been given away. There is a part of me - maybe that iota of Cherokee - that doesn’t much believe that land belongs to us so much as that we are stewards of it and that we share it with other creatures - in my case rabbits, the groundhog, birds and the occasional deer trying to maneuver through land now infiltrated by subdivisions.

The Bush Administration wants to sell 300,000 acres of National Forest in the Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests in North Carolina. That’s more land than my great grandfather managed to acquire on behalf of the Forest Service in his entire energetic and visionary career. The ostensible purpose of the sale, according to Wampum, is to fund rural schools. Bull. If we restored a sensible tax structure and didn’t march off irrationally to fight unwinnable wars, we’d have enough money to fund rural schools. Funding rural schools is simply the most politically apt excuse available, intended to tamp down opposition.

The damage this administration wreaks on this country is every day deeper and more far-reaching. (Land sales and deaths in Iraq are irreversible.) I don’t feel that my birthright was sold because I can’t build a house at scenic Woody Gap someday, not as long as that land is safe for everyone. I’m misty-eyed happy to see people hiking or taking pictures or picnicking there. But I do feel that my birthright - our birthright as a nation - is being sold when our government parcels off and sells tracts of land in the middle of our National Forests to the tune of 300,000 acres in a single state.

The comment period regarding the sale of the land ends tomorrow. You can email SRS_Land_Sales@fs.fed.us. I hope you do.