ECOTOURISM
The Corbin, Kentuckybased Appalachian Wildlife Foundation is developing an ecology education site on Kentucky’s first mountaintop removal coal mine.
“Capitalizing on the wildlife of the region for conservation, based on our work, turned into a tourist attraction,” said board chairman Frank Allen.
A wildlife center rich with elk, deer, bear and more than 260 species of birds will open in 2019 while mining operations continue nearby. An economic impact study predicts the 19-square-mile tract of former mine land will attract 638,000 annual visitors, generate $124 million in annual spending by its fifth year and create 2,300 jobs.
“The mining has created phenomenal elk habitat. Elk are, by nature, prairie animals, and the grassland habitat that’s created when the coal mines are restored is very conducive to the elk,” Allen said. “It’s kind of the ultimate irony: The ‘evil’ mountaintop removal process and, all of the sudden, it’s created the ideal habitat for wildlife.”
The Monday Creek Restoration Project in New Straitsville, Ohio, gave locals their first look at a clear-running stream in generations, according to project manager Nate Schlater.
“The stream where a lot of my work has been focused, Monday Creek, was a dead stream, declared possibly unrecoverable in 1994,” he said. “Today, there’s 36 species of fish living in the stream, it’s nearing achieving EPA warm water habitat status. People are now fishing in the stream. My grandkids are catching fish where there’s never been a fish in my lifetime.” Corning native Susan Hern, center, hands a holiday plant to Malana Monson, a local bakery owner, at her gift and craft shop Anew View, Thursday in Corning, Ohio. Communities across Appalachia are turning increasingly to the region’s rich reserves in things other than coal, namely, history and rugged natural beauty, to frame a new tourist economy. Enjoying a drink, hike or overnight stay or in region infused with stories, sweat and strife is turning out to be a draw to aging baby boomers and millennials alike. Studies show these efforts are attracting tourists, new residents and a new sense of self-worth.
CHANGING ECONOMIES AND MINDS
Coal country overwhelmingly supported President Donald Trump, who pledged to reverse coal’s decline, but just 1,200 new mining jobs have been created across the region since January. That can’t make up for the hemorrhage of the past: In Southwest Virginia, mining employment plunged 45 percent from 1990 to 2014.
Even those with good coal jobs sometimes feel they need backup plans. Rodney Embrey loves his job in communications at the Buckhingham mine in Corning, Ohio, but he’s also started a lucrative side business with a friend selling antiques. Their store is in a building once slated for demolition as an eyesore. “It was a dry goods store when it opened up” in 1905, he said, an era he and others call “the boom.”
The new economy appears to be attracting jobs, tourists and even new residents to the Virginia region that’s furthest along in its efforts. One study there found that arts, entertainment, recreation and related fields added over Images depicting long-since disassembled oil derricks peppering the landscape of 1920’s New Straitsville is displayed at the New Straitsville History Group Museum, Thursday in New Straitsville, Ohio. Communities across Appalachia are turning increasingly to the region’s rich reserves in things other than coal, namely, history and rugged natural beauty, to frame a new tourist economy. Enjoying a drink, hike or overnight stay or in region infused with stories, sweat and strife is turning out to be a draw to aging baby boomers and millennials alike.
we’re also finding is that communities that have embraced the creative economy have seen an influx of 25- to 34-year-old collegeeducated people moving in. We can’t say it’s related, but there’s a correlation.”
He added that visitors often come in with a “stereotype of what they think they’ll find . ... Nine times out of ten, they leave with a different perspective than what they brought.”