Born in southwest Virginia, Cade Campbell’s Appalachian roots run generations deep, but his connection to the region is built on more than just native geography.
Campbell’s love for the Appalachian environment is something that has been a part of him since his existence and, throughout the years, has gradually evolved to be the cornerstone of his career and educational focus.
“I can’t remember a time that I didn’t want to look for critters under logs and look at plants,” Campbell said.
By chance, he was introduced to ETSU Professors T.J. Jones and James Donaldson as a child through the Friends of Roan Mountain program, who both fueled his passion for the outdoors and inspired him to pursue his studies in this field. His relationship with Jones and Donaldson goes back at least seven years.
“They kind of started teaching me about biology and about [Roan] Mountain and how to love and appreciate the nature we have here,” Campbell said. “I wanted to learn the things they were teaching me and how to appreciate my region.”
Now, Campbell is a junior pursuing a biology degree at ETSU with minors in Appalachian studies and environmental studies.
Campbell remarks that his time spent studying Appalachia and its environment has revealed to him just how interconnected humans are to their ecosystem. He adds that the richness of the Appalachian region, both in its culture and its nature, is something that the world does not get to see a lot of.
“We have something really special, and a lot of the time it gets ignored or pushed to the side,” Campbell said. “I see an Appalachian future where we don’t try to separate people so strongly from our environment. We make each other stronger.”
Campbell’s Appalachian love and expertise is now something that gets to enrich the lives of his community. He has utilized social media to get his message out since he was in high school, but this has only led to more opportunities for his platform to expand.
In addition to social media, Campbell runs a blog, “The Backwoods Resurgence,” does wildlife photography, has written for the Tennessee Conservationist and the Tennessee chapter of the Sierra Club and has worked with Blue Ridge Discovery Center and Friends of Roan Mountain.
Campbell and some of his friends are also trying to start an organization on campus called the “Naturalist Collective,” which is currently based on GroupMe and Instagram.
“While we’re unsure what it’ll look like in the future, it’s a goal for us to just gather a community of students from all disciplines, any people who want a connection with nature,” Campbell said.
Campbell urges readers to get back to nature and see what it can teach you.
“We’re in one of the most biodiverse, if not the most biodiverse, terrestrial ecosystems in the entire nation,” Campbell said. “The stuff we have here is not really comparable to anywhere else in the world.”
Throughout daily life, Campbell thinks that it is important to take notice of the environment all around us.
“I would like for people to just take a moment and pay attention to the biosphere we’re surrounded by,” Campbell said. “There’s just this amazing world all around us that a lot of people ignore and there’s no reason to.”
He adds that this simple practice of just looking at the nature around him has made all the difference in his life and has changed the way he sees himself in relation to his environment.
“There is always something you can learn,” Campbell said. He believes this to be the most rewarding thing about loving nature.
Campbell jokes that the things you can learn from nature are like “rabbit-trails”, meaning that you never reach an endpoint on your quest for answers. Along the way, you inevitably learn about something else, which leads you down that “rabbit-trail,” and the cycle continues.
Similar to this welcomed uncertainty, Campbell is currently unsure where his studies of Appalachia will take him, but he is open to the journey.
“I want to continue with academia and I’d like to travel some but, ultimately, I see myself in a little cabin living up somewhere in the mountains of southwest Virginia, trying to live an ecologically integrated life,” Campbell said.
To get connected with Cade, visit his Instagram: @cadeccampbell, and stay updated with his blog: thebackwoodsresurgence.blogspot.com/?m=1.
For more information on joining the “Naturalist Collective,” follow them on Instagram: @naturalistcollectiveetsu.
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