The Allegheny National Forest exists on what might have been the most heavily exploited landscape in the history of civilization. Careful stewardship over the last eight decades has transformed it into a beautiful forest that contains countless wildlife species and some of the world's most valuable timber. Local communities are steeped in pride for having written that unprecedented environmental success story. Unfortunately, the Allegheny is now the focus of a caustic new timber war that will ultimately test the limits of American environmentalism. No longer satisfied with protecting the pristine old growth that captured the national imagination in the early 1990s, activists have embarked on campaign to put an end to the Allegheny timber program. Litigation and protests have shaken the region for a decade. More recently, it has become a hotbed of eco-terrorism. But restoring the Allegheny to something activists accept will be far more difficult, expensive, and explosive than setting aside a few million acres for the northern spotted owl. This book examines the communities caught in the middle of that political crossfire and forces Americans to decide if they are ready to accept the new activist agenda: In their own words, 'If we can stop logging on the Allegheny, we can stop it everywhere.'

By Samuel A. MacDonald

Part 1 Introduction: Welcome to "Pennsyltucky:" A Strange New Front in the Great American Timber War
Chapter 2 The Forgotten Forest: The Allegheny Experience, From Old Growth to Brush Heap and Beyond
Chapter 3 Meet the Activists: History, Culture and Politics Collide at the Annual Gathering
Chapter 4 Mom and Pop Go Bust: The Complex Plight of the Allegheny Sawmill
Chapter 5 I Work in the Woods: Fear and Logging on the Allegheny
Chapter 6 Restoration, Reality and the Perils of Science: Can the Allegheny Become a Wilderness Again?
Chapter 7 Take It to the Streets: Radical Activists Battle Pre-teen Satirists for Control
Chapter 8 Third Way or Third Rail?: Zero Cut Meets Resistance From Within
Chapter 9 The Anti-Activist: A Right-wing Renaissance Man in the Land of Bulls, Bars and "Dinors"
Chapter 10 Legal Eagles, Underdogs and the Fish that (Almost) Ate Pittsburgh: Half Steps and Caveats in Federal Court
Chapter 11 Wilderness Revisted: What is Pretty? And Why It Matters.
Chapter 12 Old Growth, New Economy and the Tourism Promise: If you build it, who will come?
Chapter 13 Epilogue: The Great Green Pendulum
Part 14 Index
Part 15 About the Author