Healing Mountains

	Ken Hechler, left, and the irrepressible Granny D, at the Healing Mountains Conference.

During Memorial Day Weekend, more than 300 mountaintop removal opponents converged for the Healing Mountains conference at the Cedar Lakes Conference Center in Ripley, WV. The event combined OVECs 6th annual Summit for the Mountains with Heartwoods 16th annual Forest Council.

"The destruction of our natural heritage and the obliteration of our mountain communities would be considered an Act of War were the damage perpetrated by a foreign power," said Heartwood event organizer Andy Mahler. "The Forest Council/Summit opened the door wide on this dirty little secret."

Conference keynote speaker Doris Haddock, better known as the 90-something Granny D who walked across America to raise awareness of the need for real campaign finance reform, described mountaintop removal: "Great electrical shovels, like invading space monsters, take apart our mountains ...The question for environmental activists is this: Can the planet be saved even if many of the people do not understand the problem or, despite the ready facts, are insistent upon staying the course of self-destruction because it profits them in the short term?"

	Maria Gunnoe shares the horrors of living next door to a mountaintop removal mining site in southern WV.

Granny D, introduced by former Congressman Ken Hechler, urged young people to set goals for their communities, states and nation. Conference attendees from 19 states and the District of Colombia spanned four generations, including a large contingent of students and young adults. Many heeded Granny Ds advice as they participated in Mountain Justice Summer 2006. (Read Granny Ds entire speech at www.truthout.org/docs_2006/053006S.shtml.)

Throughout the weekend, participants could choose from a variety of trainings and workshops and panel discussions. Filmmakers and authors presented their documentaries or spoke about their books and filmed and wrote for unfinished documentaries and books. TruthOut.org carried video from the conference on its popular website.

Mary Hufford of the University of Pennsylvanias Center for Folklore and Ethnography presented "Holding Up the Mountains, The Narrative Ecology of Southern West Virginias Community Forest" to thunderous applause.

She noted, "In this region one cannot talk about places in the mountains without talking about people, or about people without talking about the land

"The names on the land are touchstones to the

historic depth of a seasonal round of hunting, gathering, and gardening, which we schematized and placed online at the Tending the Commons website. (A participant in her work noted), People on Coal River just about every one of them does the same thing. They dig the ramps, pick the greens, they get the molly moochers, they pick the blackberries, they fish, they hunt, they dig ginseng. Its the traditions of the people. They do it, their kids is gonna do it, their grandkids is gonna do it, and thats the way it is on Coal River."

Thats the way it is until mountaintop removal destroys the forests, the streams and the culture of the people that rely on them. Healing Mountains attendees will work to ensure that the mad destruction of our future stops!

Healing Mountains was organized and co-hosted by OVEC and Heartwood. Co-sponsors included Coal River Mountain Watch, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Sierra Club Central Appalachian Environmental Justice Program, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, Model Forest and SouthWings. Dozens of groups, businesses and individuals supported the event.