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On December 7, a large coalition of conservation and recreation groups issued a memorandum of understanding (MOU), in effect a statement of principles, for what they want to see come out of the forest plan revision process for the Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests.
This took thousands of hours of hard work, collaboration, and compromise. The result is a win-win proposal that supports more permanent land protections and Wilderness areas, as well as more trails and more public access.
Wilderness advocates and conservationists support this proposal, because it wins stronger protections for more than 364,000 of the national forest’s 1 million acres including 109,000 acres of designated Wilderness Area.