THE DIRT is a weekly look at some of the most pressing outdoor news issues from around the Blue Ridge and Beyond.
This week: Arrowhead Bike Farm underway in Fayetteville, West Virginia, Apple buys 36,000 acres of private forest land, North Carolina legislators look to ban private ownership of wild animals, and scores dead in Nepal and on Mount Everest after a devastating earth quake.
Arrow Head Bike Farm
Still in the building and fundraising phase, the Arrow Head Bike Farm is a proposed mountain biking hub that will be located near the entrance of West Virginia’s New River Gorge trail system. If the capital is raised, the folks behind this project would like to construct a campground, a biergarten, and a bike shop. Fueled by the motto, Cultivate Mountain Biking, Arrow Head Bike Farms seeks to broaden MTB interest throughout the state of West Virginia. First on their list of priorities is a skills course, and Arrrowhead is asking for community support to help fund the project. They say they’ll provide the blood, sweat, and tears. They just need a little monetary support in order to get the wheels rolling. You can help them out here.
Apple Buys Trees
Apple is partnering with The Conservation Fund to buy up 36,000 acres of threatened forests in Maine and North Carolina. The tech giant says it will allow The Conservation Fund to manage the forests and sustainably harvest trees using the “working forest model.” The trees harvested will be used in the packaging of Apple’s ubiquitous products. According to Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environmental initiatives and former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the company’s decision to develop it’s own paper supply chain and bypass big pulp vendors represents an unprecedented step in the right direction.
NC Bill 554 Seeks to Ban Ownership of Certain Exotic Pets
North Carolina legislators have proposed a bill that will prohibit the possession, sale, transfer, or breeding of dangerous wild animals by private citizens. Currently, there are a handful of counties in the state that permit the possession of such animals. Species proposed by the ban include red and gray wolves, all feline species except domesticated cats, and all species of hyena, aardwolf, bear, and primates.
Read more here: http://bit.ly/1PCZ65i
BEYOND THE BLUE RIDGE: Everest Earthquake
Thousands are dead in Nepal after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Lamjung, devastating much of the country’s infrastructure early Saturday morning. Among the confirmed deaths were eighteen individuals—many of them sherpas—camped at Mount Everest Base Camp. The deaths occurred after an earthquake induced avalanche struck the camp.
Click here for photographs of the devastation in Nepal.
