TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT AN IMPORTANT PART OF A BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOT - FORESTS IN THE KLAMATH-SISKIYOU ECOREGION OF OREGON

Ruth Sandra Sperling
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This is just to spread the word --

Apparently, the BLM in Oregon has put together a plan that includes increasing logging in the globally significant Klamath-Siskiyou ecoregion - increasing it 400% - I wonder where all the logs are supposed to come from.

I found out about it through an update from ConservatioNews on Twitter, which I follow on Twitter.

So, I went to this: http://forests.org/blog/2008/11/alert-stop-bushs-midnight-raid.asp --

and found out that it was about the Klamath-Siskiyou region, which I have read up about before and know where it is -- and I know it is in the southwest part of Oregon that is part of the California Floristic Province, a globally significant Biodiversity Hotspot identified by the International scientists of Conservation International.

In this beautiful coffee-table style book I have, "CALIFORNIA FLORISTIC PROVINCE", that is an excerpt of the book, "HOTSPOTS, EARTH'S BIOLOGICALLY RICHEST AND MOST ENDANGERED TERRESTRIAL ECOREGIONS", there is a map of the California Floristic Province -- and way up at the top left of the Province is the Klamath-Siskiyou Region.

I also have this wall map from Conservation International of the globally significant Biodiversity Hotspots on the planet, so I know that there are only 3 globally significant ecoregions in the United States:

1. California Floristic Province - including 70% of California's land area (not high and low arid regions-deserts) plus a piece of southwest Oregon and a piece of northwest Baja California in Mexico. It is the only hotspot that is largely within the United States and is the largest land area in the United States that is globally significant. (There are quite a few regionally significant Biodiversity Hotspots in the United States.)
2. Caribbean ecoregion - southern part of the state of Florida is a part of this ecoregion.
3. Polynesia/Micronesia - the Hawaiian Islands - a small part of this wide-stretching ecoregion.

These 3 areas are part of the small percentage of Earth's land surface that are the global Biodiversity Hotpots -which originally was about 11.8% of the planet's land surface, but only 12% of that is in intact condition, meaning only about 1.4% of the Earth's land surface has the biodiversity to be globally significant to life on our planet.

Protecting this small percentage of the Earth's land surface is extremely important to global biodiversity and life.

As stated by Conservation International: "If we fail to act effectively in the hotspots, we will lose a major portion of life on Earth in the first half of the twenty-first century regardless of how successful we are in other areas. The need to concentrate on the hotspots is clear and compelling."

Well, folks, for the BLM to decide to increase logging 400%, with all its negative impacts on the ecology of the area where the logging is done in addition to the removal of the trees (logging, especially clearcutting, negatively impacts the micro-flora of the soil and the soil's ability to grow vegetation-learned this from reading Aldo Leopold), in one of the 3 globally significant ecoregions of the United States is, well --terrible and irresponsible and....

So, I Took Action on the website, Forests.org, and modified the letter a bit, adding in some information - especially about it being a globally significant ecoregion - and making the letter my own and quite substansive - and sent it.

I hope a lot of other people are doing that, too.

Would you like to do something to contribute to stopping logging of a forest that is globally significant ecologically --meaning it is beneficial to you, wherever you live, if it is protected and cared for properly and restored as needed?

Here again is the link: http://forests.org/blog/2008/11/alert-stop-bushs-midnight-raid.asp

You can -- the letters, especially if you modify their form letter in some way with your own words -- make a difference!! (Making it your own by adding you own comments in between the lines of the form letter makes it not a form letter any more.)


Ruth