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No special access restriction applies.

Preferred Citation

[Description and date of item], [Box/folder number], West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, Records, A&M 3282, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift from WV Highlands Conservancy. diPretoro, Richard S., 1997/12/05

Biographical / Historical

The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy is an activist environmental group which works to preserve forests, fragile ecosystems, and waters in the state. In several campaigns, the 1,500-member organization has helped to protect some of the state's most ecologically sensitive and pristine wilderness areas.

Formed in the mid-1960s and incorporated in 1967, the group fought to stop proposed roads through the Cranberry backcountry and the eastern highlands. Since then, the Conservancy has taken on other major campaigns. Beginning in 1970, the Conservancy worked with other groups to wage a successful 12-year campaign to set aside 47,800 acres in the Cranberry backcountry and Laurel Fork as federal wilderness areas. The Conservancy also worked to create the 10,215-acre Dolly Sods and 20,000-acre Otter Creek National Wilderness Areas as part of the 1975 Eastern Wilderness Act. After a decades-long battle, the Conservancy helped to stop the Davis Power Plant project, which would have flooded more than 7,000 acres of wetlands in the Canaan Valley.

In recent years, the Highlands Conservancy has joined other state and national environmental groups to address mining issues, particularly mountaintop removal and acid mine drainage, and management of public lands, including timber sales in national forests. The Conservancy is also pushing legislation to regulate logging practices, and to establish the Blackwater Canyon as a national park.

The nonprofit group supports itself through membership dues and the sale of publications. Throughout the year, the Conservancy sponsors outdoor programs -- hikes, canoe trips, camping, and bike trips -- and public works projects such as trail maintenance in the Monongahela National Forest.

Sourced from the West Virginia Encyclopedia article on West Virginia Highlands Conservancy (see link in External Documents).

Scope and Contents

Administrative records, correspondence, publications, financial records and other material of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy (WVHC), an environmental advocacy group formed in 1967. This collection contains material regarding the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy's activism on issues such as preservation of wilderness areas (including the Canaan Valley, Shavers, Fork, Otter Creek, the Monongahela National Forest [box 7], and the Cranberry Wilderness [box 7]) and air quality, especially in relation to the use of coal.

This collection is organized into ten series, based upon the original order of the material:

Series 1. Subjects; 1967-1994, undated; box 1/folders 1-6
Series 2. Publications; 1969-1996; box 1/folders 7-14, box 2, and box 3/folders 1-14
Series 3. Audit Records; 1975-1976; box 3/folders 15-17
Series 4. Contracts; 1983-1986; box 3/folder 18
Series 5. Membership; 1989-1991; box 3/folders 19-29
Series 6. Administration; 1974-1987; box 4/folders 1-29
Series 7. Financial; 1973-1987; box 4/folders 30-40
Series 8. Government; 1970-1987, undated; box 4/folders 41-48
Series 9. Issues; 1978-1985, undated; box 4/folders 49-59
Series 10. Minutes; 1966-1990; box 5/folders 1-16
Series 1. Subjects (cont.); 1967-1994, undated; box 5/folders 17-28, box 6, and box 7

Related Material

3282, 3653

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Environmentalism.
• West Virginia Highlands Conservancy
• Wilderness areas -- West Virginia -- Cranberry Wilderness