The Evergreen Heritage Center: a Western Maryland Sustainability Showcase
Surrounded by 130 acres of forest, wildlife, ponds, and evergreen trees, the Evergreen Heritage Center, first settled in the late 1700s, is the site of an ancestral home that began as a cabin, became a plantation, and is now supporting indoor/outdoor learning in a setting adjacent to the Great Allegheny Passage and the Western Maryland Scenic Railway.
Americans may think we have complete sovereignty over National Parks, Monuments, and other places of historical or geographical value within our own borders. The truth is shocking. In 1972 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) drew up a treaty called The Convention Concerning Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. UNESCO's official website says, "World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located." Under Carter, Reagan, the first Bush, and Clinton, the following U.S. National and State Parks were put on the World Heritage list: Mesa Verde; Yellowstone; Everglades; Grand Canyon; Redwood; Mammoth Cave; Olympic; Great Smoky Mountains; ...
We don't seem to get it. By "we," I mean the majority of people around the world, especially people in developed countries. By "it," I mean the simple fact that global warming-along with a few other indignities perpetrated by humanity on Mother Earth-is killing the planet. A decade or more ago, I would have said killing the planet slowly. No longer. The scientific evidence clearly indicates that our environment is heading down the tubes, from glaciers receding at ever increasing rates, to deserts expanding, to tropical diseases moving outward from the equator, to progressively more violent storms. And, for the most part, the developed countries-those who have set Earth on this catastrophic course through burning of fossil fuels-continue business as ...
The Citizens Conservation Corps of West Virginia (CCCWV), a Beckley based nonprofit organization with multiple offices throughout the state, was recently honored at an awards ceremony on Capitol Hill with the 2009 National Strategic Partnership Award for its exceptional collaboration with the Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team (ACCWT).
