Urge West Virginia's Delegation to Protect West Virginia Wilderness!

The Monongahela National Forest has some of the most spectacular unprotected wild places in the eastern United States.  These places are threatened by a wide array of factors that could destroy their scenic beauty such as logging, mining, road building and industrial energy development.

The West Virginia Wilderness Coalition has identified 15 special places throughout the Mon that qualify for protection through federal Wilderness designation. Places like Seneca Creek, Spice Run and Roaring Plains deserve to be protected for future generations to enjoy.  To protect these places and several others, we need the leadership of the West Virginia congressional delegation. And to get that, we need your help! Please contact your senators and representative today. Urge them to work with the coalition to protect wild West Virginia!

Photo below: Flagged Red Spruce in the proposed Roaring Plains Wilderness Area, Monongahela National Forest, WV. Photo courtesy of www.JonathanJessup.com

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: West Virginia Wilderness Deserves Protection

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

West Virginia is truly wild and wonderful and I want it to stay that way for generations to come.

Concerned citizens from around the state have identified a number of special areas in the heart of the Monongahela National Forest that should be protected as wilderness. We need your leadership to make this happen.

It has been over 20 years since any new wilderness was designated in West Virginia and less than half of one percent of our state is permanently protected. The special places being proposed for wilderness are threatened by logging, mining, road building and industrial energy development. It is crucial that you act now before these state treasures are destroyed.

A citizens proposal for new wilderness areas on the Mon has been developed by folks in West Virginia. Among them are Seneca Creek, Roaring Plains, Spice Run and additions to both Dolly Sods and the Cranberry Wilderness Areas. Support for protecting the these places and others has been steadily increasing. A growing number of businesses in communities around the forest have endorsed the proposed new Wilderness areas, along with convention and visitor's bureaus and the town of Lewisburg.

The loss of these wild places would endanger wildlife and directly impacts our state's clean water and air. In addition, wilderness is essential to the economic future of our state. Every year, tens of thousands of people from around the country flock to West Virginia to enjoy our great wild resources. Protecting West Virginia's remaining wilderness is critical. There is much to lose.

Please work with the concerned citizens of West Virginia to protect our state's remaining wild places as congressionally designated wilderness.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
March 04, 2004


Background Information

Wilderness has been a part of our history since people first set foot in the forests, fished their streams and explored the high country that distinguishes our state. Wilderness is the place, as Wallace Stegner wrote, "against which our character as a people was formed." No place in the eastern U.S. boasts more of this rugged beauty than West Virginia.

Appropriately, West Virginians have played an important role in wilderness protection. Former Sen. William Ramsey Laird was one of the original 10 co-sponsors of the Wilderness Act of 1964. And Sen. Robert C. Byrd spoke passionately in support of the act during the congressional debates in the early 1960s that led to its passage and again in a Senate floor speech hailing the act's 35th anniversary.

Mountaineers: "Always Free"
Sen. Byrd said, "...the wilderness of my state has given West Virginians a freedom to explore. This freedom has been secured and protected so that future generations -- like my baby granddaughter, her children, and her children's children -- will be able to say 'Montani Semper Liberi,' 'Mountaineers are always free!'"

Sen. Byrd was a sponsor of the Cranberry and Laurel Fork Wilderness bill over 20 years ago. That was the last legislation enacted to protect West Virginia wilderness and it is time for more!

More Work To Be Done
Today, less than one percent of "wild and wonderful" West Virginia is permanently protected as wilderness, and the Monongahela National Forest has far less designated wilderness than other national forests on average.

The West Virginia Wilderness Coalition is determined to change that and soon. But we need your help!

How You Can Help: Write Your Members of Congress Today!
The West Virginia delegation can take steps today to give our state's remaining wild places the protection they deserve. Please take a moment to tell your senators and your representative that you support wilderness designations for the remaining wild areas in the Monongahela National Forest. Urge them to introduce legislation to protect those magnificent areas as soon as possible.

For More Information
For more details on the Wilderness Campaign, contact the West Virginia Wilderness Coalition at http://www.wvwild.org