I grew up in WV and still clearly remember a particular WV History lecture at WVU. More than 30 years ago, Professor Wiley (a campus favorite) told the story of an environmental minded surveyor hired to mark a line through the middle of the last stand of virgin hemlocks in WV. One timber company owned a large parcel. They were selling about half of the parcel to another timber company. Both companies were undoubtedly eventually going to harvest every last tree.
The contract between the companies said somehing like, "Company A sells xyz acres of timber land to Company B." The surveyor was hired to map the line through the divided parcel. Both companies knew the location of the start of the line. Neither company knew precisely where a line dividing the parcel would end. So the surveyor hatched a plan to preserve some of this virgin timber for future generations to enjoy.
The surveyor began at the known starting point, calculated a point at the other side of the parcel, marked it, drew a map and told the first company that was the line. The surveyor went back to the same starting point, calculated a DIFFERENT end point, marked the line, mapped it and told the second company that was the line.
For the next several decades, each company logged their timber up to the line they believed started the other companies property. Several more decades passed before someone figured out the surveyor had preserved a long triangle of virgin hemlocks.
By that time, the surveyor and original principals of the two companies were long gone. The heirs to the two companies agreed to leave the trees to the state for preservation. They can be seen today at Cooper's Rock State Park. Look for the Virgin Hemlock trail.
http://www.coopersrockstateforest.com/trails.html