The Western North Carolina Alliance is celebrating 30 years - and you're invited! For three decades, the Alliance has been a trusted community partner, marshaling grassroots support to keep our forests healthy, our air and water clearn, and our communities vibrant. And we want you to join us as we look back on our successes and look ahead to an even greater future.

The Alliance is celebrating our 30th birthday this year and we through the year we will be reflecting on and celebrating the legacy our work has already left Western North Carolina: no clear cutting, no oil or gas exploration and extraction, cleaner air and water, enduring stands of old growth trees, healthier forests overall.

Many of you, our members, were part of the Alliance's early days, and many of you have been with us for most of these last three decades. In fact, over half of you are now over 60. Perhaps you are starting to think about what your legacy will be to our region's environment.

WNCA, local conservation groups and the U.S. Forest Service have reached an agreement that protects an area of rare old-growth forest from logging near Franklin in the Nantahala National Forest. The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) had appealed the agency's logging proposal, called the Haystack project. Original plans for the timber sale would have cut nearly 50 acres of old growth forest-one of the rarest habitats in North Carolina forests.

WNCA's work in the Swannanoa Watershed was aknowledged during a recent radio broadcast of the Swannanoa Journal.  Hannah Franke Fuller discusses how Warren Wilson College Service Learning students have been working with our French Broad Riverkeeper, Hartwell Carson, to test the water's content for fecal waste. 

Click here to listen to the broadcast or read the story!

The backbone of the Western North Carolina Alliance is the participation of our members. Your membership connects you with vital information, strengthens the WNC Alliance voice to policy makers, and financially supports our work.

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