Old-growth forests are increasingly rare in the Carolinas. But in Mecklenburg County, you don’t have to travel far to find a mature, biodiverse forest.
The Old-Growth Forest Network is compiling a map of the country's oldest remaining forests.
The nonprofit has added the mile-long Chestnut Loop Trail in McDowell Nature Preserve to its map.
Ciera Wilbur, the nonprofit's southeast regional manager, said the trees along the Chestnut Loop Trail have been here since at least the 1930s.
“Having a hundred-year-old forest in an area like Mecklenburg County that is experiencing so much development is pretty significant,” Wilbur said.
In order to be added to the map, these forests have to be freely accessible to the public. They also have to be really old, meaning either they’ve never been cut down, or they’ve only been cut down once Europeans colonized the United States.
“We have less than 5% of our primary — like never been cut — forests left,” Wilbur said. “And in the East, that’s less than 1%.”
McDowell Nature Preserve is the eighth location in North Carolina added so far.
“A forest is an ecological community,” Wilbur said. “But we, as humans, are also part of that community.”
