Epic Games CEO saves old growth forests in North Carolina go.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from go.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Michelle Pugliese moved to Asheville on a blustery day in November 2007 and the next morning needed to see for herself the famed mountain known as the Roan, where the mighty Appalachian Trail travels through Mitchell County.
“I fell in love with the Roan the first time I saw it. I had no idea as I was driving up to Carvers Gap that I was driving by this property,” said Pugliese, land protection director for the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy.
The Asheville-based nonprofit land trust recently transferred 91 acres, known as the Roan Mountain Gateway, to the U.S. Forest Service, adding to public lands just south of the intensely popular Carvers Gap area on the North Carolina and Tennessee border.
Groupâs work to bring 2,600 mountainous acres under protection
ELIZABETHTON â The year 2020 has been a very bad year for many business activities. The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has made it difficult to conduct meetings and close deals.
Despite these problems, it has proven to be an unusually productive year for the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, closing on the protection of more than 2,600 acres across the mountains of Western North Carolina and East Tennessee. Angela Shepherd, the conservancyâs communications director, said several of those projects had been in the works for many years.
âIt is a testament to the commitment of SAHC members, staff, and conservation-minded supporters that we have been able to complete these projects during extraordinary circumstances, and we are grateful to all the people who make this remarkable work possible,â Carl Silverstein, SAHCâs executive director, said. âThere is something tangible and reas