The theme for the 2020 annual conference of the Appalachian Studies Association was “Appalachian Understories.” Conference announcements cited, somewhat vaguely, the “Mother Forest.”  This was nice to see because the globally unique Southern Appalachian forests don’t receive much recognition, especially the world-class national forest commons.  Yet these nearly contiguous six million acres …

 I was invited to give this presentation by my watershed group, Friends of the North Fork Shenandoah River.  In “A Sedimental Journey: How Historic Deforestation Degrades Waterways Today,” I …