Tag Archives: wildlife
Getting to the Root of Recurring Water Conflicts
The western United States is characterized by highly variable and seasonal rainfall patterns. To deal with the constant threat of drought, the West relies on intensively managed water systems. Today, those systems face two challenges that were not anticipated when they were developed decades ago: increased demands that water be left in streams to sustain aquatic systems; and global climate change, which will decrease snowfall, leaving less water for farms and cities. The inevitable result is heightened conflicts over water allocation.
As we pointed out in our 2008 book, Water War in the Klamath Basin, the U.S. has not yet shown the ability to cope effectively with water conflicts. In the drought summer of 2001, the Bureau of Reclamation shut down the headgates of the Klamath Project to conserve endangered species. Protests and violence followed. Some wet years have forestalled another shut-off, but the underlying causes of the conflict remain unaddressed. This March, the Bureau of Reclamation announced that it would delay irrigation deliveries to protect federally listed fish.
Similar conflicts are heating up in the Sacramento River system. Crashing fish populations have forced reductions in water deliveries, and closed the ocean salmon fishing season for the second year in a row.
It would be a mistake to simply ignore the environmental costs of established water diversions, as those calling for Endangered Species Act exemptions would have us do. Instead, we need to highlight the trade-offs among competing uses, and allocate our limited water resources in ways that recognize modern values. That means moving some water away from low-economic value farming to instream and municipal uses. That will not happen without pain, but it will be less painful if we do it now than if we wait for the next crisis.
Holly Doremus is professor of law at the University of California-Davis. She has written extensively about biodiversity protection and the intersection of environmental law and natural science.
A. Dan Tarlock is Distinguished Professor of Law at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. He was principal writer of the Report of the Western Water Policy Review Advisory Committee, Water in the West: Challenge for the Next Century.
About Holly Doremus
Holly Doremus is Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis. She has written extensively about biodiversity protection and the intersection of environmental law and natural science.
Anthony D. Barnosky: Now for Some Good News
My extended family tells me they’re getting a little depressed about hearing all the bad things that might happen from global warming. So I guess it’s time to point out that maybe it’s not as bleak as it seems. Here’s the good news.
We live in a world that, despite the unwitting impacts of humanity, is still in pretty good shape. If you define wilderness as places that have fewer than five people per square km, with at least 70% of the natural vegetation intact, in patches of at least 10,000 square km, you are talking about 46% of Earth’s land surface. That’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good, and offers reason for hope. Humanity also clearly values unspoiled places as emotional touchstones, as evidenced by some 12% of Earth’s land being designated as national parks, reserves, or similarly legislated areas where some aspect of nature is protected.
At least some of those areas are still ecologically intact to the extent that they are working very much as they were long before modern society got its hands on them. The Yosemite area still has pretty much the full complement of mammal species it had in John Muir’s time. Yellowstone still has nearly all the mammals that have inhabited the park for at least three thousand years. In Africa, there are lots of charismatic megafauna left, and in fact overall community structure in many nature reserves there is not too different than it has been for tens of thousands of years.
Bottom line: there’s still an awful lot worth saving out there. We may be looking at the brink, but we’re not over it yet. So far we’ve been reasonable, if far from perfect, stewards of nature.
We don’t want to blow it now, and we could in an instant. That’s why the danger signs we’re seeing in Earth’s special places are particularly noteworthy—shifts of Yosemite’s species to higher ground as climate heats up, decline in Yellowstone’s amphibian species as drought hits the park year after year, and dwindling populations of large animals in South African parks as the dry season gets too long. These are early warning signs of heatstroke for nature, but it doesn’t have to be fatal.
Which brings us to the second bit of good news—we can do something to prevent the worst consequences of global warming, including consequences for nature. A critical piece of the solution is to take action to slow Earth’s heat-up—and that means at the personal level, the corporate level, and at the national and international levels. For nature, we will also have to implement new conservation strategies to account for some amount of global warming that is inevitable.
Lest you think it’s un-doable, remember two things.
- Individual actions really are important. Just for example, changing light bulbs to CFLs. Multiply out the lightbulbs changed by hundreds of millions of households and businesses, and estimates of how much CO2 just that one action would keep out of the atmosphere range from 1.6 gigatons over 25 years, to saving as much as 2.4 gigatons over 10 years. To put that in perspective, around 3 gigatons is about what seems likely be added over the next 10 years if business goes on as usual.
- Never underestimate what people can do when they put their minds to it.
And therein lies perhaps the best news yet. Human ingenuity and potential are enormous. If we just put our minds to a common task.
About Anthony Barnosky
Since 1990, Anthony Barnosky has been on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, where he currently holds the posts of Professor of Integrative Biology, Curator of Fossil Mammals in the Museum of Paleontology, and Research Paleoecologist in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.
Anthony D. Barnosky: So What’s Wrong with a Little Global Warming
Be afraid (but don’t panic).
On the first day of spring, the only thing I was afraid of (maybe even a little panicked) was that I didn’t have enough warm clothes. I was in Boston, mid-afternoon, and the thermometer on my dashboard registered in the low 30′s—that would be Fahrenheit. Spring? I don’t think so. I could see my breath, even though the sun was shining. A couple of days later, as my wife and I were walking across a college campus in Maine that our California-bred daughter was checking out before applying, it was even colder, right around 18°F with a biting wind, in what should have been the heat of the day. Although I didn’t actually ask, I didn’t get the sense anyone was thinking too much about global warming, except maybe to say, “Bring it on.”
It was right around then that the penny really dropped for me—if you live in a climate like this, a little global warming doesn’t sound like such a bad thing. Especially when they’re telling you a major impact will be flowers blooming a week or so earlier. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want that to happen?
Well, it depends what you’re willing to sacrifice—nothing comes without a cost, after all. In this case, the sacrifice seems to be loss of many of the flowers we like, and increasing numbers of the kinds of plants we don’t particularly care for. At least that’s what seems to be going on at one of nature’s icons just a short distance outside of Boston—the woods around Walden Pond. These are the same woods where Henry David Thoreau found his muse, and where he passed the time by carefully recording what plants first bloomed on which days. Some 150 years later— that is to say, from 2003 to 2007— Harvard and Boston University biologists systematically strolled those same woods and replicated Thoreau’s surveys.
What they found, as they reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS, November 4, 2008, vol. 105, pgs., 17029–17033), was that, on average, around Walden Pond plants are indeed flowering about a week earlier than they were during Thoreau’s time, coincident with local warming of about 4.3°F over the past 100 years. But hidden in that “average” are exactly which plants are doing well and which ones are not. A disproportionately large number of weedy, non-native species are the ones blooming earlier; these plants seem to have the genetic and behavioral flexibility to take advantage of those earlier warmer temperatures and blast out their flowers, getting an early start on reproduction. But the charismatic wildflowers—things like buttercups, anemones and asters, dogwoods, lilies, orchids, St. John’s worts, violets, and others are losing out. For whatever reason, they seem not to have the ability to move their flowering clock forward to get a jump on spring. As a result, they are declining in abundance, to the point where they seem on the road out of the area.
Now the “be afraid” part.
It turns out those wildflower species that are losing out belong to several different “families” on the evolutionary Tree of Life. It’s not just one or two families—it’s more like 16. And it’s not just one or two species in each family—it’s more like a quarter to a half of the species in each. What seems to be happening is a wholesale pruning of many branches of the Tree of Life around Walden Pond, with global warming being the chainsaw.
Loss of aesthetics is one thing, loss of livelihood another. That too seems on the horizon from global warming in the Northeast. As we drive through Vermont, it’s hard not to notice the roadside signs to drop in and enjoy fresh maple syrup, a crop that pumps more than $13 million per year into the state’s economy. Another recent study reported in PNAS (2008, vol. 105, pgs. 4197-4202) documents that in the past 40 years maples and other hardwoods in Vermont have been declining in their traditional growing areas, and marching to higher elevations in response to local warming of about 2°F. Marching upslope is fine as long as you don’t run out of mountaintop, which is destined to happen. In fact, models that link maples to their required climate indicate that the new center of the maple syrup industry is on the move not just upslope, but north, to Canada.
As for me, I’m putting on my jacket (and my sweater and my vest) and heading south. We’re continuing our drive down into New York, then we’ll circle back to Boston. I think on the way I may stop at Walden Pond and see what’s blooming.
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Since 1990, Anthony D. Barnosky has been on the faculty at the University of California–Berkeley, where he currently holds the posts of professor of Integrative Biology, curator of Fossil Mammals in the Museum of Paleontology, and research paleoecologist in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Dr. Barnosky is author of the book Heatstroke: Nature in an Age of Global Warming. Click here to visit his website.
About Anthony Barnosky
Since 1990, Anthony Barnosky has been on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, where he currently holds the posts of Professor of Integrative Biology, Curator of Fossil Mammals in the Museum of Paleontology, and Research Paleoecologist in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.
David Wilcove: Can Pres. Obama restore the integrity of federal science?
A reporter recently called me, asking what changes in environmental policy I hoped to see in an Obama Administration. I immediately thought of the specific issues that have troubled me over the past eight years: unregulated oil and gas exploration in the West, too few species protected under the Endangered Species Act, too many snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park, the reckless quest to drill, baby, drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, etc., etc. And then it struck me that there was something far more fundamental that President Obama needs to do. He needs to restore the authority and integrity of the scientific work done by federal agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the EPA, and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
For nearly eight years, the Bush Administration has systematically suppressed, altered, or disowned scientific findings that conflicted with its predetermined opinions. For example, Julie MacDonald, a political appointee in the Interior Department with no training in ecology or wildlife biology, pressured Fish and Wildlife Service scientists to change their findings on whether certain species belonged on the endangered list or the amount of critical habitat other species needed to survive. In other cases, she sent confidential documents about endangered species to allies of the industries that would likely be affected by conservation measures in order to determine if the proposed measures were acceptable to those industries. This sort of unethical behavior has several unfortunate consequences: It drives good scientists out of the federal government; it causes people to lose faith in the integrity and authority of the agencies charged with protecting America’s natural resources; and it results in lots of litigation, which can paralyze the agencies.
In the long run, shoddy science is in no one’s best interest-not the public, not the regulated industries, not the environmental community, and most certainly not the nation’s natural resources. President Obama can do the nation (and the world) an immense favor by appointing people who understand that sound decisions cannot be made on the basis of unsound science.
What do you think? Leave us a comment.
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David Wilcove is professor of ecology, evolutionary biology, and public affairs at Princeton University and one of the world’s leading experts on endangered species. He is the author of No Way Home: The Decline of the World’s Great Animal Migrations.
About David Wilcove
David Wilcove’s research focuses on the conservation of biodiversity and in particular the development of innovative approaches to protect endangered species, migratory species, and wilderness. Over the past decade, Wilcove has undertaken a number of studies pertaining to imperiled wildlife and the US Endangered Species Act, examining such factors as the causes of species endangerment, the geographical distribution of imperiled species, and the costs of habitat restoration and conservation. More recent projects include an assessment of ongoing efforts to preserve the endemic plants and animals of the Florida scrub ecosystem, with the goal of developing better tools for identifying key areas and species to protect (in collaboration with Conservation International and the Archbold Biological Station) and studies of insect migration in collaboration with colleagues at Princeton University. He has undertaken various research and policy projects related to the conservation of freshwater biodiversity in the United States, the protection of the northern spotted owl and its old-growth forest habitat in the Pacific Northwest, and the management of the national forests surrounding Yellowstone National Park. Prior to joining the Princeton faculty in 2001, Wilcove served as senior ecologist with Environmental Defense (1991–2001) and The Wilderness Society (1986–1991). In addition to No Way Home, David S. Wilcove is the author of The Condor’s Shadow: The Loss and Recovery of Wildlife in America (Freeman, 1999). He is the author of over 90 scientific publications, book chapters, and popular articles dealing with the conservation of biological diversity, endangered species, ornithology, island biogeography, and conservation policy. He holds a B.S. in biology from Yale University and a Ph.D. and M.A. in biology from Princeton University, where he is currently Professor of Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Public Affairs.
Callum Roberts: Suspicious Absence of Conservation (SAC)
Greenpeace is well known for non-violent direct action in support of conservation. Very recently, they took a bold step in the German North Sea when they placed large granite boulders, each weighing two to three tons, around the Sylt Outer Reef. This reef is one of the few areas of rocky sea bed in the North Sea and is designated as a Special Area of Conservation under European Law. At first glance it might seem like some madness has overcome Greenpeace activists since the reef is officially protected. But Greenpeace’s action highlights the present weakness of marine protected areas in Europe.
Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) are intended to protect sites that support species and habitats determined by European legislators to be important. In the sea, this means reefs, caves, shallow sandbanks and a few other habitats, and a rather short list of species that includes charismatic animals like the Harbor Porpoise. Setting aside the problem that the list of habitats and species SACs can protect is brief, arbitrary, and fails to encompass anything like the range of wildlife that needs protection, at present most SACs offer little benefit to marine life at all.
SACs are intended to maintain habitats and species’ populations in ‘favourable condition’, which in practice usually means little more than ‘not declining’. To designate one, conservation agencies seek places with sufficient in the way of life that it seems worth having one. In most cases, it is assumed that these places are in favourable condition and management is therefore focussed on preventing decline. If you take this view, as many government conservation agencies have, it implies that present uses of a site are entirely compatible with conservation. This is rather convenient if you want to avoid having to upset anybody whose activities might be curtailed, and it is certainly a good way to save money on management costs. But it is a policy that is failing Europe’s marine life badly. In my view, the acronym SAC perhaps more accurately expands to Suspicious Absence of Conservation!
The problem with this thinking is that it fails to redress past human impacts that have degraded the sites. A little history is in order here. In the mid-19th century and before, a vast area of the Southern North Sea was crusted with oysters and a myriad of other invertebrates including corals, seafans and sponges. In the 1880s, newly invented steam trawlers began to drag their nets back and forth across the seabed to catch fish, in the process tearing up marine life. Before long, little of this highly productive habitat remained, leaving behind the shifting sands and gravel familiar today. The last commercial catches of oysters were made in the 1930s and the last living oysters were caught in the 1970s. Only a few pockets of hard bottom remain, like the Sylt Outer Reef.
The German government has not protected the Sylt Outer Reef SAC from bottom trawling. Greenpeace’s boulders are intended to help achieve what they have not. In the Mediterranean, many seagrass meadows have been damaged or destroyed by bottom trawlers. France and Spain have both seeded important areas of seagrass with anti-trawling reefs that snag and tear trawl nets, keeping fishers out. Hopefully, the Sylt Outer Reef will at last get the protection it deserves.
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Callum Roberts is Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of York in England and the author of The Unnatural History of the Sea. Click here to visit his website.
About Callum Roberts
Callum M. Roberts is a marine conservation biologist in the Environment Department at the University of York. He was first tempted into marine science by a trip to the coral reefs of Saudi Arabia, where he studied behaviour and coexistence of herbivorous fishes. This led to a lifelong love of coral reefs and effectively dispelled his prior notion that marine science was all about freezing on the deck of a North Sea trawler knee deep in fish. In the early 1990s his interests in behaviour gave way to concern about the deteriorating condition of coral reefs, leading to his current emphasis on marine conservation. Currently, Callum's research focuses on human impacts on marine ecosystems. While his interests in marine conservation have blossomed over the years, his field research remains firmly rooted on coral reefs. On the islands of St. Lucia and Saba in the Caribbean, he has studied the effects of marine reserves closed to all fishing. Those studies revealed both the huge scale of human impacts on the sea, and the means of protecting marine ecosystems from such effects. He is now working to gain acceptance for marine reserves more widely, including in Britain and Europe where he is helping fishers to promote the concept within the industry and to politicians. Callum has served on a US National Research Council Committee on Marine Protected Areas and has also been a member of the Marine Reserves Working Group, headed up by Jane Lubchenco, Steve Gaines and Steve Palumbi at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara. He was awarded a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation in 2000 to tackle obstacles to implementing marine reserves, and in 2001 he was awarded a Hardy Fellowship in Conservation Biology at Harvard University.
