I think "nature" in this article refers to actual natural treasures (Grand Staircase, Yosemite, etc.), not just some random forest on some rolling hills.

And the fact that it has vast natural resources is part of why it's poor. If you can forage a meal of morels, trout, and ramps, what's the point of earning a lot of money to go to fancy restaurants? It's not like you're going to get a better meal than that even by dropping a couple hundred bucks in NYC. So you end up with lots of people who living on large parcels of inherited land but not making very much money per year, because that is actually somewhat sustainable, at least until it comes time for retirement or (more likely) you have medical issues that you can't afford to pay for.

Please tell me you’re joking.

West Virginia is precisely an example of only the wealthy enjoying nature.

The wealthy retreat to Greenbrier or go skiing at Snowshoe Mountain.

All the while, the working class turn to nature to build squatter camp in the summer to pinch and save for winter shelter since the mines went out of business. In many valleys (not the wealthy ones), nature cannot even provide decent water, the result of contamination from modern top chop mining (by the wealthy). Things have only deteriorated recently, unless you consider not dying young of black lung disease “enjoying nature”.

Can you expand on this? I genuinely don't understand the "poor people are adjacent to trees" statement in the context of an entire country. Like genuinely this sounds like solid comedy unless I'm missing something here.