Preface

Although the following poem is, as it were, a thing unto itself, I would like to delve a little into some of the issues that inspired it, for we seem to find ourselves at a watershed moment in the natural history of the West Virginia highlands, and indeed the entire Appalachian range.

It seems likely that in the next 20 years or less what is left of the wild mountains will either stand or fall, becoming slowly but steadily wilder as the forest-preserves grow and mature or succumbing to a further insinuation of condos and clearcuts, pipelines and cell-towers, as "homo corporatus" conquers every niche from ridge-crest to canyon depth, and what is left of the wilderness will be more like museum pieces, their evolution frozen in time as a few humans armed with government permits slowly file past, gazing curiously...

The fact that many areas in the highlands, including Blackwater Canyon/Canaan Mtn. could still become a thriving wilderness again in spite of already intrusive developments gives us reason for hope, but it is balanced on a knife’s edge. That such a wondrous place as the Blackwater can be handed over to a greedmongering businessman by narrow-minded arbiters of the Law is indicative of how perilous the situation is. If justice were to be truly served in this case we would evict John Crites from his ill-gotten gains, in the name of the greater public good, and return his money to him, minus his logging profits and a substantial amount to try and clean up the mess he’s made, and impeach the judges who allowed him to do it, for their blind disregard of the will and best interests of the people and the earth.

Unfortunately this is of course pure fantasy in a time and place where the "rights" of a single human are upheld as taking precedence over an entire forest ecosystem. Neither the Blackwater Canyon nor anyplace else will ever be truly free until this arrogant doctrine is torn out by its roots and replaced by the acknowledgment that substantial areas of wild land must be preserved for the good of us all, both of the natural world and our human culture that is sustained by it. There are at least some encouraging signs that this metamorphosis may finally be taking shape, such as President Clinton’s plan to curtail exploitation and preserve biodiversity in the national forests, which, if carried out and sustained, might at long last give us a national forest system that is truly for the forests and their natural inhabitants.

None of that, however, would do the Blackwater Canyon any good under its present thralldom, so the question remains of how to save the canyon for the benefit and sustenance of the many from the rapacity of the few. Although I don’t believe that making the Blackwater a national park is necessarily the best way to protect it, that may well be the only way that is now feasible. And though we are right to employ whatever legal weapons there may be to help to stop the destruction there is no kind of law or bureaucratic designation that will save the Canyon from ourselves. That can only happen when we embrace the principle that the lives of other beings on this planet have no less value or importance than our own, and that our freedom is ultimately dependent on the freedom we give to those fellow travelers.