In our opinion, St. Patrick’s Day is a good enough excuse to have a pint. (Who are we kidding? We don’t need an excuse!)
Tonight, however, a special event at EarthFare in West Asheville will offer an even better reason to raise our glasses. Local favorites Pisgah Brewing Company will sell pints of their organic beer and donate the proceeds to the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project.
The beer flows from 6 to 7:30 p.m. tonight.
RiverLink’s Adopt-a-Stream teams are coordinating several river cleanups in March, and we need your help! Come out and get your feet wet while you help get trash out of our waterways! All supplies are provided. Experienced boaters and individuals with tools to retrieve trash from the tree limbs and on the banks are encouraged to participate.Â
Please RSVP to the Volunteer Coordinator atÂ
volunteer@riverlink.org. or 828-252-8474 x118Â
Saturday, March 17: Reed Creek (near UNC-A)
Sunday, March 18: French Broad River @ Ledges ParkÂ
Wednesday, March 28: French Broad River, Lyman St. (W. Asheville)Â
Saturday, March 31: Swannanoa River @ Thompson St. (S. Asheville)Â
Did this great weather give you spring fever? You’re in luck. Many park facilities, campgrounds and secondary roads that were closed for the winter reopened today in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Here’s the lowdown, from the park officials themselves:
We’re really excited to announce our sponsorship of a great event. ‘Into the Woods” will be a concert and party featuring The High Windy Band, an award-winning bluegrass outfit. The celebration, to be hel April 20, will raise money for the Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition.
The folks at SAFC have been working hard to protect the places in which we love to play. Let’s give them the support they deserve!
Friday, April 20th, 6-9 pm, at the beautiful Crest Center in Asheville.
With live music by The High Windy Band!
First Place Winners of the 2005 North Carolina State Bluegrass Competition.
First Place Winners in the senior bluegrass band competition at the 2006 annual Fiddler’s Grove Festival.
A stellar silent auction,
and lots of food and drinks!
Call SAFC at 828.252.9223 for tickets and information.
Tickets are $35 each.
Â
President Bush will give a speech today in Shenandoah National Park about his National Park Centennial Initiative. Finally, he’s getting the picture: our national parks need help. The new budget features the most money he’s ever proposed for the National Park Service and its governmental parent, the Department of the Interior. Bush’s forward vision will ready our national parks for the 100th anniversary in 2016.
Strange, then, that Bush’s budget also proposes selling national forest land to fund rural schools. More than 5,600 acres in North Carolina would be auctioned off. Now, we’re not opposed to funding rural schools, but this shouldn’t be done at the expense of our public lands. (more…)
The Citizen-Times reported on a ridiculous idea to sell public lands.
What are these people thinking? We should be preserving more land for the public, not selling land!
Finally, the news we’ve all been waiting for: the state of North Carolina has bought Chimney Rock. The 996-acre park cost us $24 million. This stunning property will forever be protected from development and will now become the centerpiece of a new 3,500-acre Hickory Nut Gorges State Park.
Read more in the Citizen-Times.
Join Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy (CMLC) and Friends of DuPont Forest (FODF) at 10 a.m. Saturday at DuPont State Forest, and help cleanup western North Carolina’s largest state forest. CMLC has been dedicated to helping preserve the integrity of the lands surrounding DuPont and added 118 acres last year to the northeastern section of DuPont. If you would like to join the efforts, please email them or call (828) 697-5777.
Maps will be provided to participants, so feel free to pack a lunch and hike afterwards. Friends of DuPont Forest is a volunteer service organization working to enhance the public use and enjoyment of the DuPont State Forest while protecting its natural resources. For more information about Friends of DuPont Forest, please call (828) 884-2006, or visit www.dupontforest.com.  Â
Last month, we were so busy with Christmas sales that we forgot to note two huge accomplishments in land preservation: Hump Mountain and Cane River. The Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, which played a major role in both cases, sent us press releases about the areas.
RiverLink is forming a new Natural Resources Volunteer Advisory Committee, whose mission will be to expand on RiverLink’s efforts to revitalize the French Broad River and its tributaries as a place to work, live and play by providing expert advice on natural resources that are relevant to the French Broad watershed.Â
 |
|
