Land for Tomorrow
"... a diverse partnership of North Carolinians and organizations committed to securing support from the public and General Assembly for protecting critical land, drinking water and historic places...."

• In just the past year, more than 100,000 acres of North Carolina's family farms, working forests and natural areas disappeared.
• In 2005, North Carolina lost 1,000 farms, leading the nation. Forestry acreage is at its lowest point in decades.
• Increased land and water conservation funding is needed to protect our state's drinking water supply, family farms and forests, and preserve our state's natural heritage.

Elisha Mitchell Audobon Society
"...Our mission is to promote an awareness and appreciation of nature, to preserve and protect wildlife and natural ecosystems, and to encourage responsible environmental stewardship.... EMAS members take pride in two on-going projects. These areas not only provide outstanding recreational opportunities for nature enthusiasts, but also preserve critical habitat for the area's flora and fauna...."

Beaver Lake Bird Sanctuary
EMAS is responsible for this 8-acre wetland sanctuary in north Asheville. In 1988, after raising over $400,000, we acquired the property to protect it from commercial development. Improvements have been added including a gazebo, pond and boardwalk.

Mt. Mitchell State Park
EMAS is especially supportive of conservation and educational efforts on Mt. Mitchell. We have been instrumental in securing grants for signs, trail maintenance, and a special trail for the visually impaired.

Click on each of the dozens of categories to the left to uncover what makes the Asheville area so vital, so intriguing and so, well, UTTERLY BLISSFUL!

From Rolf Potts' Vagabonding blog:

I've never been one of those uptight literary types who thinks that you have to have actually read a book in order to recommend it to others. So I feel no trepidation in suggesting Eric Weiner's new travelogue-slash-memoir The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World The premise of the book is simple but intriguing-- here is Amazon's description:

Part foreign affairs discourse, part humor, and part twisted self-help guide, The Geography of Bliss takes the reader from America to Iceland to India in search of happiness, or, in the crabby author's case, moments of "un-unhappiness." The book uses a beguiling mixture of travel, psychology, science and humor to investigate not what happiness is, but where it is. Are people in Switzerland happier because it is the most democratic country in the world? Do citizens of Singapore benefit psychologically by having their options limited by the government? Is the King of Bhutan a visionary for his initiative to calculate Gross National Happiness? Why is Asheville, North Carolina so damn happy? With engaging wit and surprising insights, Eric Weiner answers those questions and many others, offering travelers of all moods some interesting new ideas for sunnier destinations and dispositions.

In the imaginary Netflix queue of books-that-I'm-planning-to-read, this one has just jumped to the top. By the way, why has no one started a Netflix for books? This question, and many more, I'll leave for another day.

Appalachian Voices: Overview of Appalachian Voices Forest Health and Restoration Program
"...The forests in the Southern Appalachian Mountains have the highest level of diversity in all of the United States. They are home to a rich species mixture of trees, herbaceous plants, and animals. They also provide a home for recreation and enjoyment, and a livelihood for many in the area. They are beautiful, valuable, and unique forests. Over 70% of these forests are privately owned, family forests. With proper, sustainable management, they will remain a healthy ecological and economic component of the larger Southeastern landscape. Without proper management, these forests face numerous challenges. If current trends continue, the South will lose 12 million acres of forest land to development by 2020 and another 19 million acres by 2040. Yearly, 5.3 million acres in the South are heavily logged, representing 60% of all logging in the United States. The threat of development and the high percentage of logging concentrated in the South create a great need to ensure that any timber harvests that occur on private southern forest lands are carried out in a manner that maintains forest cover and healthy economies...."

Asheville PARC
"...is a citizen group dedicated to keeping watch on government action related to land use in Western North Carolina and other issues that affect the public good...."

North Carolina Natural Heritage Program
"... is a part of the Office of Conservation and Community Affairs within the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The program inventories, catalogues, and supports conservation of the rarest and the most outstanding elements of the natural diversity of our state. These elements of natural diversity include those plants and animals which are so rare or the natural communities which are so significant that they merit special consideration as land-use decisions are made...."

Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservacy
"... The mission of the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy (a land trust) is to conserve the unique plant and animal habitat, clean water, and scenic beauty of the mountains of North Carolina and east Tennessee for the benefit of present and future generations. We achieve this by forging and maintaining conservation relationships with landowners and public agencies, owning and managing land, and working with communities to accomplish their conservation objectives...."

Conservation Trust for North Carolina
"...Our mission is to protect our state’s land and water through statewide conservation and cooperative work with land trusts to preserve our natural resources as a legacy for future generations. The Conservation Trust works directly with landowners, local land trusts, and government agencies to protect land and water resources most important to local communities throughout the state...."

Sierra Club: The Western North Carolina (WENOCA) Group
"... is the part of the North Carolina Chapter of the Sierra Club. Its area of interest covers the counties of North Carolina west of Buncombe county except for Transylvania, Henderson and Polk counties. Those three counties are covered by our sister organization the Pisgah Group. The group usually meets on the fourth Thursday of each month. The meetings start at 7:30 p.m. with half an hour of social get together from 7:00 p.m. until the start of the meeting. The meetings are held in Asheville at the Unitarian Church, One Edwin Place, (at the corner of Charlotte and Edwin Streets). The form of the meeting is a brief session of announcements and business followed by a presentation about an issue in which the WENOCA Group is interested. A list of the forthcoming programs can be found on the meetings page...."

WildSouth
"... is a non-profit grassroots organization whose mission is to inspire and empower people to protect and restore the native ecosystems of the Southeast!..."

Educational Resources

Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont
"... is a residential environmental education center located within Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We help teachers, students, parents, vacationers and photographers learn about stewardship and the cultural and natural history of the Smokies through our in-depth education programs including weekend hikes, Elderhostel programs, family camping programs, and 3- and 5-day school group programs. Using GSMNP as our classroom, you can learn about the environment and do some hands-on research with our citizen science program, teaching young and old about science and scientific research in the park...."