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BioGems Named Americas' Most Endangered Wild Places WASHINGTON, DC, February 27, 2004 (ENS) - The dozen most endangered places in the Americas, from the Arctic to the Amazon, were named to the 2004 BioGems list by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The environmental organization says the list will be used to mobilize citizen action to defend these 12 extraordinary areas. NRDC launched its BioGems initiative in 2001 to empower citizens to save some of the Western Hemisphere's last wild and unspoiled places. Since then, the organization's one million members and Internet activists have generated more than three million messages of protest to corporations and governments planning to despoil wilderness and wildlife habitats. "With the help of hundreds of thousands of activists, we have won seven major battles over the last three years, protecting thousands of square miles of pristine wilderness," said Jacob Scherr, director of NRDC's International Program. "NRDC's BioGems campaign is a modern David, taking on the Goliaths of industry and their political allies. Our slingshot is the Internet." Three sites are new to the BioGems list for 2004: the Cumberland Plateau in the southeastern United States, the Western Arctic Reserve in northern Alaska, and the heart of the boreal forest in central Canada. The Cumberland Plateau extends from West Virginia and Kentucky through Tennessee to Alabama. The plateau has the largest concentration of endangered species in North America, but the NRDC fears it is being clearcut for toilet tissue, newsprint and office paper.
Sunset over the Cumberland Plateau (Photo courtesy St. Mary's)The rare eastern cougar still inhabits hardwood forests of oak, hickory, black gum and red maple and rivers are full of more than 230 fish species. But paper companies such as Kimberly-Clark, Bowater, Mead-Westvaco, Weyerhaeuser and American Packaging are cutting these forests and replacing them with plantations of non-native pine, says the NRDC, wiping out the region's wolves and devastating songbird populations.The Western Arctic Reserve, although set aside as a National Petroleum Reserve, is the largest stretch of wild land in the United States. The Bush administration is opening the reserve to oil leasing, but environmentalists believe development plans are not environmentally sound. This Arctic land is the reservoir of many rare species. Bluffs along the Colville River offer nesting grounds for the highest density of breeding peregrine falcons, gyrfalcons and rough-legged hawks in the world. The wetland portion of the reserve shelters millions of shorebirds and waterfowl. The Kasegaluk Lagoon is used by 3,500 beluga whales that gather to feed, bear their young and molt. While oil development will take all around it, Interior Secretary Gale Norton in January designated 102,000 acres as the Kasegaluk Lagoon Special Area. "This area because it is important for migratory birds and marine mammals and features marine tidal flats that are rare on the North Slope. The Utukok Uplands provide critical calving grounds for a caribou herd of 430,000, Alaska's largest.
Manitoba's boreal forest (Photo courtesy Manitoba Museaum of Man and Nature)The Canada's boreal forest is the great northern forest that rings the globe just below the Arctic. Inhabited by wolves, moose, black bear and endangered woodland caribou, the wilderness character of this forest type is threatened by power developmentManitoba Hydro plans to construct hydroelectric dams and transmission lines through Manitoba's boreal forest, in part to supply U.S. electricity markets. "The transmission lines alone would slice through critical nesting grounds and native cultural sites and open the door of this pristine wilderness to roadbuilding and logging," the NRDC says. In Ontario, roads and logging undermine the interests of indigenous communities in conservation and community development. The remaining nine sites have been listed by the NRDC in previous years, but remain under threat. They include five sites in the United States: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Tongass National Forest - both in Alaska - Utah's Redrock Wilderness, Yellowstone National Park, and Florida's Everglades. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is threatened by oil and gas development that would be centered in the middle of the calving grounds for the Porcupine Caribou herd, which is the basis of subsistence for the region's native people. Migrating birds from every continent of the world come there to nest at some time during the year. Even if fully developed, yield from the refuge has been estimated to cover U.S. oil needs for six months. Logging companies have their eyes on the Tongass - a temperate rainforest in southeast Alaska that is three times the size of any other national forest with stands of 800 year old hemlocks, spruces and cedars. The world's largest breeding concentration of bald eagles share the forest with grizzly and black bears, and its rivers nourish the richest salmon runs in the country. The Castle Bighorn wildlands in western Alberta are on the list because of concerns over oil and gas development that threaten key habitat for wolves, bears, cougars and lynx.
Exloring the Upper Macala River, Belize (Photo courtesy Wildlife Trust)In Central America, the BioGems campaign will continue its four year old fight against a scheme to dam Belize's Macal River and flood the surrounding rainforest, one of the wildest places left on the continent. But the conservationists are fighting an uphill battle on this issue. The court of last resort, the British Privy Council, ruled in January that while flawed, the dam could go ahead on grounds of Belizean sovereignty.In South America, NRDC will intensify campaigns to protect Peru's Tahuamanú Rainforest, filled with old growth mahogany trees, and Chile's Olivillo Coastal Forest, which is a haven for hundreds of species found nowhere else on Earth. "Industry wants to turn our old growth forests into toilet paper, and industrialize our last pristine wilderness areas for relatively little oil," said Johanna Wald, director of NRDC's Land Program. "The public is rising up and saying 'No more.' There are better, cleaner and more economical alternatives to destroying our natural heritage." More information can be found at: http://www.savebiogems.org |
