Natural Habitat Fragmentation and "Rewilding" America

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives

http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation

1/21/00

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY

Forest loss and diminishment threaten more than biodiversity. Moving

upscale, regional ecosystem processes are jeopardized when forest

fragmentation reduces natural habitats to islands within a sea of

development. Dynamic natural ecosystems, and their composition and

functions, can only be perpetuated fully, and in the long term,

within the context of spatially extensive protected areas. Achieving

global ecological sustainability will require greater emphasis upon

habitat conservation at broad spatial scales, such as landscapes and

bioregions. It is at this scale that forests are sustained or not.

Strictly protected, large ecological core habitats must be maintained

in developing natural environments, and cores must be restored to

already reduced forest landscapes. Over-developed landscapes will

need to undergo "rewilding", whereby targeted restoration activities

reconnect landscapes and their ecological elements. These ideas are

some of the most exciting, and scientifically credible, components of

forest conservation policy adequate to actually make progress towards

achieving global forest sustainability.

g.b.

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Title: 'REWILDING' AMERICA

Nature's next crisis: islandization

With natural habitat becoming fragmented, activists call for

networks of interconnected parks.

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

Date: January 20, 2000

Byline: Todd Wilkinson

A century ago, as the nation looked back across an expanse of Western

land that Thomas Jefferson said would take centuries to fill, the

American frontier had already been declared closed.

But in those first days of the 1900s, the settling of the West brought

with it a grim reality: The wildlife that had sustained the Indians

and established scenes of romantic grandeur for famous landscape

painters was gone.

The toll exacted by hunting and clearing land for European livestock

included 60 million bison, hundreds of millions of prairie dogs, and

millions of elk, wolves, and bears. So rare were large animals that

sightings made newspaper headlines.

Today, many of these species have been rescued from extinction through

adoption of measures such as the Endangered Species Act and the

creation of national wildlife preserves. However, a new challenge is

rising, environmentalists say, creating a crisis for next century: the

"islandization" of natural habitats.

"We overcame the wildlife declines caused by [overexploitation], but

at the beginning of this century, habitat loss and fragmentation make

that problem seem almost insignificant," says Michael Soul,, a well-

known conservation biologist. He notes that the rate of petitioning

for species to be protected under the Endangered Species Act is

accelerating.

How to reconnect the landscape

As a result, conservationists - and even politicians - are calling for

larger and larger chunks of land to be protected. Others go further,

suggesting that tamed landscapes be "rewilded" and preserves be

connected with biological corridors.

The Clinton administration's proposal to protect as much as 60 million

acres of roadless forests is recognition that the government itself

embraces the "bigger is better" approach to saving species habitat,

experts say.

One template for creating a latticework of preserves is the Sky

Islands Wildlands Network, a proposed park that would cover portions

of Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico. Beyond just poring over maps,

promoters have done biological surveys and intend to make them a basis

for legislation in Mexico and Congress.

A similar plan, the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, would

protect and restore 18 million acres of land in the inner West. It has

won introduction to Congress each year for the past decade but not

passed. Supporters, though, say support has steadily grown on Capitol

Hill.

The plan, drafted by the Montana-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies,

would use federal money usually appropriated for things such as

logging to give timber workers jobs restoring forests and degraded

watersheds.

The Wildlands Project in Tucson, Ariz., meanwhile, has identified 31

different regions for rewilding, including the Sky Islands network and

forests in the Adirondacks, Sierra Nevadas, and the Appalachians.

Just as hunters and anglers rallied a century ago with

preservationists like John Muir to create a system of national parks,

refuges, and timberland reserves, a critical mass is growing again.

Last week, a national survey by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation

Alliance showed that 86 percent of anglers and 83 percent of hunters

want to keep remaining roadless areas in national forests road-free.

"It is remarkable how much the mainstream conservation movement,

federal agencies, and scientists have brought into strategy of

diagnosing problems and answering them with biological prescriptions,"

says Dave Foreman of the Wildlands Project.

Too ambitious?

Some Republican lawmakers express concern about grandiose bioregional

conservation proposals, arguing that loggers, miners and ranchers will

be "locked out" of the landscape.

"There has never been any doubt in my mind that we can save the

spotted owl and the grizzly bear, but we need to be more flexible,"

says Doug Crandall, who works for Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R) of Idaho on

a key congressional committee. He says new approaches to protecting

ecosystems need to be tried, but setting aside lands by decree as

President Clinton has - and using the "heavy hand" of the Endangered

Species Act - has caused resentment.

"For some species like salmon, you need to look at a larger scale, for

others like frogs, you need to look at a small scale," he says. "The

problem is that many plans get drawn up but few ever get implemented

well because they turn into a political mess."

Mr. Foreman acknowledges that green groups must overcome suspicion of

their motives in rural communities. "The conservation movement really

doesn't know how to talk to rural folks and ... Republicans," he says.

Thinking big

For its part, the US Fish and Wildlife Service says it needs to move

beyond its costly approach of protecting single species and embrace

strategies that protect many animals at once. One program allows

landowners to restore habitats for endangered species without

incurring additional regulatory burdens. More than 1 million acres of

land have been enrolled in the program.

"As the scientific evidence continues to mount, it clearly shows that

we need to think bigger," says Chris Wood of the US Forest Service,

who says the focal point of bioregional conservation begins with

watersheds, where the highest concentration of species in a landscape

cluster.

Restoring them will be costly, and inconvenient, he says, but it must

be done. "Am I confident that what we have done is enough to save

species in the future?" he asks. "Absolutely not."

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