showed that conservation plans for the California gnat-catcher (Polioptilla cali-fornica) intended
as a flagship for California's endangered coastal sage-scrub ecosystem,
did not adequately protect several rare moth species, including the
electra buckmoth, a subspecies of which is found only in this scrub
ecosystem. The buckmoth required more land for survival than the
gnatcatcher did."
"Our study (published in the international journal Science in
2008) demonstrated that it is essential to include multiple indicator
groups in order to develop effective conservation pins for
biodiversity. A plan designed to protect the lemurs would not be a good
one for the ants, and vice versa. This finding echoed earlier work by
Craig Moritz in the wet forests of Australia, which showed that data on
insects provided far greater spatial resolution for conservation
planning than did vertebrate data." Wings, Fall 2009.
It is already too late to halt global warming;
it's with us for a long time, due to inertia of global systems.
It might be too late to save our own species,
because we are not yet fully aware of our dependence
on natural processes far more powerful
than most of our gadgetry...
Do these examples, and there are others, strike you as trivial?
I
hope not. As we take a global view of ecosysems and really take that
view seriously, we will be prepared to defend ecosystems. The
charismatics can't survive without the non-charismatics, regardless of
the decisions coming out of Copenhagen. I am fairly certain those
decisions will not be enough to save millions of our own species from
global disasters.
People
Power, from the bottom up to our governments; not people management
from the top. Did you hear Dennis Kucinich's talk to a few people in
front of the White House? on 12/12? He dealt with arguments, not
excuses. "Let us gather together," he said.
In
our concern with Climate Change, we are in danger of losing track of
the centuries-long assault on nature. Clear-cutting of forests,
introducing poisons into our soils, waters and atmosphere, new
concoctions made without regard for health of people, for profit.
Bailing out banks and insurance companies is a blunt example of where
our government is headed. The surge in Afghanistan is another. Single
Payer Health Care is "socialist," is the clamor heard in Washington,
D.C. .Our survival in this nation—it is truly a matter of life or
death— should not depend on a word that is used to scare us and to take
the wind out of our sails when we gather together on streets and in
offices.