[at-l] Tilting time grows short

[RoksnRoots@aol.com (RoksnRoots@aol.com)]

In a message dated 2/23/02 5:14:33 PM, rafeb@adelphia.net writes:

<< Sorry, RnR, I don't share your sense of hysteria here. >>


    *** The story of the AT is not one of instant loss, it's one of slow 
decline. Years ago the Trail existed safely buffered by miles of rural 
backcountry. Handshake deals covered land crossings and gates being left open 
was the usual private landowner gripe. The Trail won't be undone in a single 
year, nor will it be ruined by a single project, but it will be defeated in 
the long term. MacKaye's goals existed on a long-term horizon. What makes the 
Trail the Trail is not a path upon which a warm family of hikers collect, or 
a network of hostels and towns support, what makes the AT the AT is wild 
surroundings, deep woods, and the feeling of wilderness this creates.  

     It's definitely not a question of hysteria but of dogged commitment to 
preserving whatever precious vestige of original AT surroundings, and the 
corresponding ethos created through that process, wherever they occur. You 
see the AT is more than just preserving patches of favorite local woods and 
hills, the AT is also the struggle we see here. The Project was designed to 
be a sane containment wall both physically and philosophically to the 
unyielding tide of progress. The problem today is not from overreacting 
hysterics over Trail conservation, but from under or absent reaction towards 
what is needed to keep the Project and its aim alive. You see the AT was 
supposed to go past its borders and into the consciences of everybody it 
touches. It was supposed to make people think by being a litmus test. When 
people came to its borders they were going to be confronted by a question of 
how their actions impacted this sacred ground. MacKaye thought big. The AT is 
the wall that man smacks headlong with his civilization and is forced to 
consider his role in evolution and the environment. This is somewhat deeper 
than calling someone a tree hugger or other sound bites. The AT is a fight. 
MacKaye has sent us, through time, a device that is now critically pertinent. 
This is no time to leave that beautiful machine in the crate AT people. 

      You're absolutely right. When the cod stocks were fished to near 
extinction nobody panicked. Here in Florida there are signs of reaching the 
limit for water extraction from natural availability -nobody is running in 
the streets. If you spend too much time in southern Australia exposed to the 
sun, your skin cancer chances are nearly guaranteed -again, no great rallies 
over that one. When the AT is slowly turned into a nice hedgerow greenway for 
a surrounding zone of maxed out development nobody will get too radical or 
picket government buildings. The deed will be slowly and surely done at a 
speed just about the same pace as your line above.    

    Rafe I understand your tactical concern over scope and method. Some feel 
more good is done by working more within the limits of practicality and 
appealing to what environmental enemies can identify with. Moderation can go 
a lot further than nowhere when people bounce off your methods. However, this 
still doesn't alter the outcome or change the parameters. The viewshed and 
surrounding rural lands around the wildest continuous portion of AT are as 
critical to the AT as trees are to the forest. If you've been paying 
attention to what has happened in Maine in the last few years it is clear 
that the conscientious society expected to uphold the concept of the Project 
has become a challenging front that considers the AT and its philosophy as a 
threat. 

     If you follow the AT through its history, it was created by groups of 
concerned conservationists, hikers, and officials who went out and saved vast 
parcels in the form of state and national parks and hunting grounds. The NPS 
has narrowed that focus to imposing the corridor definition wherever it can 
be achieved within its powers and budget. Times have changed and the 
surrounding lands have become much more valuable and in demand for 
development. Now is not the time to adapt an acceptance of the Trail's decline
 by saying the Trail is changing etc. What it is time for is to reawaken 
Americans to the Trail's cause and what it requires. Those who dwell within 
it should realize what attitudes and inputs will help or harm the Trail. 
Being complacent when a vast horizonal array of metal pylons and the ensuing 
sprawl it powers come head on to the Trail in one of its wildest stretches is 
not going serve that purpose. Nor is working against those very few who take 
on the challenge and try to spur others to do so as well.

     I wish we could stand on Crocker right now, Rafe, like Marley and 
Scrooge. I would summon the ghost of Trail future for you to bring up a 
vision of the completed development. No hysterics Rafe, just sadness...