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The highlands of West Virginia and Virginia feature some of the world’s oldest mountains, myriad rare species, the headwaters of the James, Potomac and other major rivers, and some of the last wild lands in the East. This fall, the Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance (ABRA) launched its Conservation Hub, an online treasure trove of GIS data, maps and links, to equip environmental advocates with the scientific information needed to protect these outstanding natural resources. ABRA also hopes regulatory agencies use the site when evaluating permits for development proposals to understand the comprehensive and cumulative impacts.
The hub’s initial focus include a highway project and timber harvest in West Virginia, and a rails-to-trails project and the proposed Shenandoah Mountain National Scenic Area in Virginia.
A central feature is the National Forest Mapping Project, a first of its kind in the nation. At any given time, there are several dozen projects underway or proposed in the three National Forests in the highlands: Monongahela, Jefferson and George Washington. It gives the public access to project locations, timelines and impacts, as well as U.S. Forest Service decision documents, thus “enabling the kind of collaborative and shared responsibility that will be necessary if we are to preserve and protect these National Forests,” says ABRA executive director Lew Freeman. See the Conservation Hub and mapping project here: abralliance.org or hub-dpmc-gis.opendata.arcgis.com/
The story above appears in our January/February 2021 issue.
