Issues-Based
Energy, climate change, ecosystem services, and how society values these services - such as clean drinking water, outdoor recreation, and biological conservation - are key issues influencing the Appalachian landscape. These issues and drivers of change are essential to understand and plan for in the management and protection of both natural and cultural resources in order to create a more sustainable landscape for wildlife and human communities.
Ecosystems Benefits and Risks
Ecosystem services are the benefits people receive from nature. These are abundant in the Appalachians, from clean drinking water and sustainably harvested forest products to nature-based tourism. They also include the sense of home that communities find in rural landscapes and the values that Americans place on conserving biodiversity.
Energy
The Appalachians are a landscape rich in globally-significant biological diversity, ecosystem services that provide clean drinking water and outdoor recreation to countless human communities, and energy resources that meet national and regional demands for coal, oil, and natural gas. For centuries, the Appalachians have been a hotspot for America's energy needs. Large expanses of forests provided early settlers with a ready supply of wood fuel. As the nation industrialized, the region became the center for coal, oil, and recently natural gas extraction. Though essential for society, the extraction of these energy resources has altered the Appalachian landscape, impacting biodiversity and natural places that make the Appalachians unique. Energy has and still is one of the leading drivers of landscape change in the region.
