The Asheville Watchdog published a fascinating article about former National Forest archaeologist Scott Ashcraft, whose tireless investigation into the Forest Service’s misuse of the sacred lands of the Cherokee people did not bring about the result he sought. What did happen to him, and to the lands he sought to protect, is a long story well worth reading. Last December, the Watchdog reports, Ashcraft shared a 277-page exposé with five tribes, in which Ashcraft offered evidence that the Forest Service had failed to protect sites of cultural importance and systemically kept tribal agencies and the public in the dark. The document is “the latest salvo” in a fight in which Ashcraft filed a federal whistleblower complaint, after which he suffered what he describes as “a campaign of workplace harassment that spanned colleagues, forest rangers and the top-ranking Forest Service officials in North Carolina,” according to the Watchdog article.
Read all about it here: