Forest Death onThe Blackwater River: Introduction

I know to some the sight of a dead body is scary.  Seeing a loved one is even more painful.  It is not just that death snuffs out the life and energy of someone we love, but it also comes unexpectedly.  Over the course of beginning this blog I have lost two family members and two classmates.

The deaths of my classmates were sudden and unexpected.  To see them one would never know that death would soon pay them a visit.  To an extent the same is true for many of us.  There is nothing more sad than to attend the funeral or wake and view the body laying motionless.  A forced expression or lack thereof posed and frozen to preserve a memory of what was and what used to be.  Looking at the shape of a person but knowing there is nothing laying before you except the empty shell of a being.  Where does that life go?  How can so much energy and being and life just go away?  Even writing this now I feel the emotion welling up inside and the pressure building behind my eyes.

Life is precious. Life is delicate.  Life is a fleeting thing.   I have learned to value the life of all things if no other reason than because they have life.  Life is an energy a force we cannot create. Think about science and how they clone cells, bacteria, even animals like sheep.  They use science to combine cells and eggs, but no matter what, they still need a living organism to make that happen. No matter what, science needs living things to create other living things.  Once life has been given, it should be held in high esteem and cared for and protected.

Living near a large beef farm I have seen how first time heifers protect their newborns even from the farmer whom they know cares for them.  I've seen how my chickens languish over the removal of their eggs they want to set on.  I see how even my pregnant cats and dogs care for their babies and provide for them and protect the lives of their young.  It is an amazing innate ability that springs forth when you give life.  My own son has called me the "mommy tiger" and himself the "baby tiger" because he has seen the fury for which I will protect him.  I don't know an animal in the animal kingdom that will not protect life.  With social media we even have seen animals from different species adopt other baby animals and nurse them. We were made aware of the lioness who spared the life of the baby baboon after killing the mother.  Nature will spare the life of innocence.  we have seen it happen.

Will humans repay the kindness of nature with sparing their lives?  Will we continue to push nature out of our way and then seek to destroy their home, their habitat, and ultimately their lives with the sale of timber and the deforestation of the land?  Deforestation is the very death of habitats and ultimately of the animals, plants, and insects who live there.  That inert body that we mourn over which lays in a carefully chosen casket is the steady symbol of what we do to hundreds of thousands of innocent life forces that we cannot recreate.  A life force that we cannot harness but have learned to destroy without so much as mourning their lifeless habitats and carcasses.

This was once a thriving wooded area near my parents home where I grew up.  I was shocked when I drove by and saw this.  Timber had been sold off and the land was left in this state. As I drove along this stretch of my childhood street, I grew sad.  I knew there was a swamp along this route and I feared for what may become of it and the animals that live there.

 The plentiful large trees are gone.  Only the stumps remain like the shell of the person we lay in caskets. A posed reminder of what used to be. A grim reminder of the life that once filled that space. Uprooted. Disheveled. Death.  I think of the birds, squirrels, butterflies, rabbits, turtles, chipmunks, deer, and other plants and insects that are gone.  My memories of the wetlands of the Blackwater River are shattered. Despite what I see happening here within the 5 mile radius of my childhood home, there is a great effort being made by the Nature Conservancy to preserve and protect the natural state of this river and others that feed into the Albemarle Sound.

This is land that has been cleared before the southern end of Yellowhammer Rd Bridge in Zuni, VA.

This is a green swampy branch of the Blackwater River that is part of the western end of Mill Creek Drive in Zuni, VA.  No deforestation has occurred in this end of the  the river.  This picture was taken about five miles from the photo of the cut trees.

The Blackwater originates as a coastal plain swamp in Prince George County. It flows east through  channels of bald cypress and tupelo in Surry County, 25 miles away from Zuni, VA. The river then turns south into Southampton County, which borders Isle of Wight County VA, where several boat ramps are accessible for anglers, hunters and boaters alike. The Blackwater then joins with the Nottoway to form the Chowan at the Virginia-North Carolina state line. Floating the Blackwater River is best done with a canoe or small jon boat. There is little to no water flow most of the time on this branch of the swampy river. The Blackwater River flows through ancient tree lined wetlands. that are full of whitetail deer, numerous waterfowl, raccoons, squirrels and many unique reptile and amphibian species, There is also a healthy fish population swimming under the water’s surface. ("Blackwater River"",  Game and Fishing)

The Southern Rivers, the landscape area that includes Blackwater River Preserve, remains a high priority for conservation action. In 2006, the Conservancy worked with International Paper and private investors to conserve more than 15,000 acres along the Blackwater, Meherrin and Nottoway rivers. International paper, which is 16.4 miles from Zuni, VA, obviously relies on timber to keep the factory in production.   Why is any of this relevant?  The Blackwater River Conservatory has one of the best remaining examples of an ancient bald cypress forest in the Southeast. Biologists estimate that some trees at this preserve exceed 800 years old.  The longleaf Pine forests are home to Virginia's rarest bird, the red-cockaded woodpecker.  The trees need to be preserved right along with the animals who rely on that habitat. ("How We Work",  Nature Conservancy)

The Nature Conservatory identified the biggest threats to the Blackwater river in Southest Virginia as:

1. Potential surburban and energy development threaten forest habitat that produces drinking water for 2 million people.
2. Degraded wetlands and droughts spawn longer and more severe wildfires, which impair air quality and threaten public health in downwind communities.
3. The area ranks among the nation's most vulnerable to rising seas.

Knowing that these threats exists, I am hoping that I can use this blog to bring awareness and to encourage this younger generation to not sell off the timber that is useful for keeping our water drinkable and area flooding to a minimum.

For more information check out these resources used to acquire information above.

"Blackwater River." Blackwater River | VDGIF. Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries,               n.d. Web. 1 Apr. 2017.

"How We Work." Albemarle Sound Whole System | The Nature Conservancy. The Nature                                 Conservatory, n.d. Web. 1 Apr. 2017.