TOM EARNHARDT: This July 4th, celebrate 'Oasis-North Carolina'

EDITOR’S NOTE: Tom Earnhardt has been described as the “steward of North Carolina outdoors.” A lawyer, he pioneered environmental law in the state. He is an avid naturalist and was co-producer of more than 80 episodes of the natural science television series “Exploring North Carolina.” His observations and photos are an occasional regular weekend feature.

At concerts, family cookouts and fireworks displays there is much to celebrate this Fourth of July.

I admit that I will probably not think of King George III and his acts of tyranny that prompted Thomas Jefferson and others to write the Declaration of Independence 245 years ago. Rather, in recent years, I have tried to reflect on the things my family and I value the most. But how do we identify them? It occurred to me several years ago that when we have entertained close friends and special guests, especially those from foreign countries, we have often shared the things and places that we consider most dear.

In the mid-1980s I hosted a friend from France for a week. He found the mountains and streams of the Southern Appalachians to be “très magnifique.” And several times I heard him say: “Cette terre est verte, verte, verte.” (“This land is green, green, green.”)

In the early 1990s I welcomed Russian guests to North Carolina who had become good friends during my visits to the former Soviet Union. They could not believe that North Carolina was on a warm ocean with wide sandy beaches. Yes, they loved baseball, our universities, and pizza, but for them it was our clean air, clear water, vast salt marshes, and coastal forests that stole the show.

For the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, I once entertained a group of award-winning conservationists from other continents, including Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. In North Carolina they had clearly not expected to see bald eagles, colorful buntings, golden warblers, or palm trees on our southernmost beaches. I also remember their unrestrained joy when they found themselves standing among Venus fly traps in the wild.

Finally, I often think back more than a decade ago when my family hosted a Chinese exchange student whose name was Zack. He was in his late teens and filled with curiosity. We took him to many of the places that he had requested to see — area universities, museums, and shopping centers. He appeared to be delighted with what he saw.

I was not prepared, however, for Zack’s reaction to an unplanned visit. One afternoon after a day of travel, I pointed out Umstead State Park as we drove between Raleigh and Durham and asked if he’d like to stop.

We got out of the car and began walking along one of the trails in Umstead, a 5,000-acre expanse of forests and streams near the Raleigh-Durham Airport. The trail was framed by shades of green and there were no other hikers in sight. To my surprise, Zack was visibly more impressed with the the park and its trails than with any other destination we had visited. His questions came quickly: “How large is this forest? Who owns it? Did you have to get permission to come here? How long will we be allowed to stay?”

I told him that all North Carolinians and visitors to the state had the right to come to the park any day of the year and that it belonged to all of us! I also explained there were many other places like Umstead Park across North Carolina and this country — parks and public lands available to everyone.

Zack announced that he had never seen such numbers and varieties of trees in one place, or heard so many birds. With a genuine sense of awe, he exclaimed there were more large trees in this one park than in his entire city of several million people. Finally, Zack asked a question— or made an observation—which has stayed with me: “Is this your oasis?”

I responded that he was very observant and the park, and other destinations like it, were places of refuge and renewal, but I liked Zack’s term better. The park was for me an “oasis.”

We usually think of an oasis in the desert, whether in the southwestern U.S. or in the Sahara Desert in North Africa. We know them to be places where water, shade, and food can be found. They are “islands of life” providing homes for plants and creatures in a hostile environment. For human travelers such places also serve as places of safe haven on a difficult journey.

Throughout the pandemic I took day trips to some of North Carolina’s public lands and wild places. In late winter, 2021, I marveled at the aerial dance of tundra swans and snow geese at Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. This spring I greeted prothonotary warblers and swallow-tailed kites as they returned to ancient forests of bald cypress just west of Wilmington. In June I photographed endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers near Pinehurst, creatures found almost exclusively in longleaf pine savannas.

Two weeks ago I took an early morning trip to several protected areas on North Carolina’s barrier islands where I photographed our most colorful bird, the painted bunting (the same bird that had “wowed” the group of international visitors years ago). And soon, I’ll travel to a isolated mountain “bald” near the Tennessee border where I will look for a rare, red lily first found by botanist Asa Gray in the mid-1800s. At each unique destination I am reminded of Zack's question from a decade ago: “Is this your oasis?”

In these United States, an oasis among nations, we live in a state with myriad wild places—oases of diversity and tranquility in the natural world. With the threats posed by a changing climate and increased development pressures, many of these oases and the living things they support may soon be in jeopardy.

Just as each of us needs an oasis in troubled times, the special places that define North Carolina and restore our spirits need advocates and stewards for their long-term survival. If you have such a favorite place among the parks and public lands we own together — a salt marsh, a longleaf savanna, a Piedmont river, a mountain cove, or a high rocky outcrop — it’s fair to ask you the same question I heard more than a decade ago from a young house guest from a faraway place: “Is this your oasis?”

What special place or vista have you shared with a guest from another state or country? Do you take care of it, and support the organizations that do? Are you certain that it will be available for your children on their life’s journey? Will future visitors, like Zack, be awed by the diversity of our forests and the sounds of birds?

We have much to celebrate on this oasis called North Carolina. Happy Fourth of July!

Whether on a Piedmont hiking trail, a coastal salt marsh, a bottomland forest, or a mountain vista, guests from out of state and from other countries often comment on North Carolina’s many shades of green. (Umstead State Park, Photo #1) (Cypress trees on the Black River, Photo #2) (Hammocks Beach State Park, Photo #3) (Hawksbill Mountain, Photo #4)

International visitors are invariably surprised to see the great biodiversity found in a simple longleaf pine savanna. In few other places can you see carnivorous plants, orchids, native lupine, and rare woodpeckers in the same vicinity. (Yellow pitcher plants, Photo #5) (Venus flytraps, Photo #6) (Pink grass orchid, Photo #7) (Hairy Lupine, Photo #8)

Some of the most elegant summer birds found in North Carolina spend their winters in Central and South America. Among the birds that I like to show off to out-of-state visitors are our buntings, grosbeaks, and warblers. (Painted bunting, Photo #9) (Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Photo #10) (Prothonotary Warbler, Photo #11)