By Faye Wooden, Arc of Appalachia

An organization that is relatively new to West Virginia is working to buy and preserve a 1,336-acre forest tract that will potentially protect 5 miles of shoreline on the Gauley River. For the last 30 years, the nonprofit land trust, the Arc of Appalachia, has been preserving forested wildlands in Appalachian Ohio, with a secondary focus on wetlands and native eastern prairie remnants. To date, they have purchased 189 properties and over 14,000 acres of natural areas. The Arc has a special focus on helping people and nature come in closer connection. To further this purpose, the Arc maintains 90 miles of hiking trails in Ohio, and hosts a large variety of outdoor literacy workshops and courses that attract registrants from across the nation. 

You may be wondering, why is a group from Ohio expanding into West Virginia? Simply put, nature knows no borders. With nearly 80% forest cover, it is the third most forested state in the nation, and real estate parcels are considerably larger, and the price/acre considerably more affordable than rural Ohio. As environmental and developmental pressures continue to escalate across the Eastern third of the continent, the need to protect our last remaining wildlands and rivers intensifies. The Arc of Appalachia likes to think of the Ohio River as not a boundary, but a stepping stone that can potentially unite land forms that share nearly identical geology and physiography.

Late last summer, the Arc of Appalachia became smitten with a beautiful, roadless 1200-acre forested tract in Greenbrier County near Lewisburg, West Virginia. The property took in nearly 2 miles of Renick Creek, and most of its watershed, which belongs to the larger Greenbrier River Watershed. Biological inventories recorded the presence of the small-footed bat, thirteen species of salamanders (including the cave salamander), and the rare Tree Lungwort Lichen. The nonprofit succeeded in raising money from private donors for the property. Today, the Arc is delighted to be the proud owner of its first nature preserve in West Virginia, and have been drawn deeper into the Appalachian heartland. 

Just as the 2024 calendar year was drawing to a close, the Arc received a 110-acre donation of land in the Carter County, eastern Kentucky, a property known as Chegeree Cliffs. This beautiful karst landscape became the Arc’s first preserve in Kentucky. And so it was that in just three months, the Arc transitioned from working in one state to three!

Earlier this year, the Arc became aware of the 1336-acre real estate on the Gauley River listing through a private offering. The tract included not only five miles on the Gauley River shoreline, but also one mile on both sides of Big Beaver Creek, a tributary of the Gauley that showcases the property’s most remote and beautiful forests. 

The entire property is teeming with wildlife, including black bear, bobcat, coyote, wild turkey, mink, beaver, white-tailed deer, and a high diversity of salamanders, including the charismatic green salamander. Notable bird species that are common in these woodlands include the Swainson’s warbler and the hooded warbler. The call of one or both species resound from evert glen and cove in the springtime. This section of the Gauley River is also a refuge for the eastern hellbender and the federally endangered candy darter. 

The forests of Five Miles on the Gauley are dominated by oaks, several species of magnolias, and eastern hemlocks, boasting a thick understory of great Rhododendron. The tract also protects a rare habitat along the frequently-flooded cobble zone of the Gauley known as Riverscour, a plant community native to the Eastern third of our nation that is in serious decline. This rare ecosystem shelters a large number of unique, imperiled species that are adapted to the alternating extremes of being exposed to the hot, drying sun and submerged under rushing floodwaters.  

The Arc of Appalachia humbly recognizes that it is a new face in the West Virginia conservation community, and it arrives to West Virginia with a great deal of humility. The Arc’s goal is to add to the efforts of land trusts that have been working in the state for decades, hopefully succeeding in attracting conservation dollars from other states that, without their efforts, would never have wound their way to West Virginia. 

The Arc has initiated a campaign to raise $3.6 million necessary for the property’s acquisition, as well as for the development of a parking lot, which will enable special events to be hosted on the site. As of this writing, the campaign is 44% complete.

To help accomplish this goal, the Arc has created a website at arcofappalachia.org for the campaign that is linked to its home page, and can also be accessed through savethegauley.org. Dedicated volunteers have created a campaign film and wrote and produced the The Gauley River Song to help reach wide audiences. Both are linked to the webpage. Arc staff members welcome communication of all kinds, and they can be reached at info@arcofappalachia.org.

Saving pristine wildlands is important no matter what corner of the world it is being pursued, but the work is especially noble when it is sought in our country’s Eastern Forests, with their impressively high biodiversity of plants and animals, stunning beauty, and generous rainfalls. 

Now is the time to dream big and begin to bring the treasures of the Eastern Forest into our nation’s consciousness as landscapes exceedingly worthy to protect.