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North America has one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world. There are deserts, wetlands, rolling hills, plains, and mountain ranges in the United States alone. But what has been done to preserve America’s incredible biodiversity? There have been many attempts in the past, as well as in recent years. Many people want to preserve the American wilderness, as Ann Malaspina discovered. “In fact, taxpayers, like those in Florida who support the wild lands corridor, are increasingly willing to pay the price to preserve open space” (Malaspina 70). The National Wildlife Refuge system was started to keep the wilderness preserved. Even though in the past great efforts have been made, the American wilderness is rapidly disappearing, and many people and organizations, including the government, have been trying to preserve our precious and diverse ecosystems.
In the mid-1900s, there was a great need for protection. In A Wilderness Bill of Rights, William O. Douglas discusses the need for parks and protected forests in California. When California was made a state, there was 1,900,000 acres of redwood trees throughout the golden state. By 1965, there were only 250,000 acres left, while only 50,000 acres were protected. At the rate they were being cut down, the unprotected redwoods would have been gone in fifteen years (Douglas 51). This shows the extreme need for protection of wilderness. The redwoods of California are extremely historic. They have been there for thousands of years, and are different from all other trees. They are irreplaceable, and it would have a huge impact on the Californian biodiversity.
State forests were, and still are today, very important in keeping individual ecosystems alive and thriving. In California alo...
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... zoos and enclosures, and there has also been recent hatchings in the Grand Canyon. This shows another recent success that is continuing today.
Over the years, there have been many successes in the preservation of the American wilderness. Started by President Theodore Roosevelt, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service has done much for the preservation. The National Wildlife Refuge System was started, and although the refuges take away over half of the lands hunters pay to protect and hunt, they have done a lot to protect America’s diverse ecosystems. The American wilderness has been rapidly disappearing, and many people and organizations have been working to slow the pace. As conditions are improving, multiple species have been saved from extinction. The wilderness is beginning to come back to life, even though the systems protecting the lands are not perfect.
These are very difficult questions for me personally to answer because I live in the Pacific Northwest, and I have seen the beauty of the old growth forests first-hand.
The question regarding conservation is very much alive today. The United States needs wildlife conservation. And the Federal Department responsible for conservation, the Department of the Interior, are under attack with President Trump's new budget plan. So it’s important to keep pushing for better laws and policies to protect conservation.
In order to depict the refuge in a positive manner to the American people, he accordingly used positively weighted words. First, in the first sentence of the article, Carter refers to the refuge as “America’s last truly great wilderness.” This invokes a sense of urgency in Americans to protect the refuge; the people of America cannot allow the greatest natural beauty in their country to be defamed. While describing his trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, President Carter paints an appealing picture in the minds of Americans.
Perhaps the most devastating disregard of the Fraser Valley’s biodiversity was the draining of Sumas Lake to create farmland, resulting in the loss of habitat and the extirpation of endemic species. As it was originally intended to be, the Fraser Valley was a “perhaps unparalleled ecosystem” (Rosenau, p. 55), with bountiful wetlands and remarkable biodiversity. The European settlers 150 years ago considered it to be “wasteland” (Thom, p. 172), certainly uninhabitable and a breeding ground for mosquitoes, so the most logical thing to do would be to drain the body of water once known as Sumas Lake...
Robbins, Jim. Last Refuge: The Environmental Showdown in Yellowstone and the American West. New York: Morrow, 1993. Print.
Maintaining ecological diversity is necessary for the survival of a biological community. In the United States, American citizens are on the verge of irrevocably damaging one of the country's most unique and diverse treasures - the Florida Everglades. This national park is now the only remaining patch of a river that used to span 120 miles from Lake Okeechobee to the Florida Bay. Dikes and levees created by the Army Corps of Engineers in the late 1940's drained this river to reduce flooding and increase useable water for the development of the region. This major diversion of water lead to a trickle down effect causing the continual decline of the environmental state of the Everglades. Since then, debates over the Everglades' future have silently raged on for years about how, why, and when the restoration will begin. This ongoing, but virtually unproductive effort has cost taxpayers a great deal without any apparent benefits. Recently, this debate has been amplified by the voices of the sugar industry in Florida, which was attacked for its major contribution to pollution of the Everglades. Now debates rage on with a new effort called the Restudy. Backed by the Army Corps of Engineers, this effort would change the flow of the Everglades, potentially restoring it into the viable community of life that it used to be. The question now is, will this latest attempt to restore the Everglades ever be realized (thus ending the cyclic Everglades debate) or will it simply add up to one more notch on the bedpost of inadequate and failed attempts to save this national treasure. The world is watching to see how the United States will handle this unprecedented cleanup.
In conclusion, the reintroduction of gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park is an excellent example for future conservation efforts in the United States. The successful case shows that there is a need to restore gray wolf populations, in order to ensure optimal ecosystem functions. By observing the effects of the absence of a top predator from Yellowstone Park and the changes that have occurred after reintroduction, more people may be able to conclude that wolf populations are necessary for ecosystem balance and conservation. With this conclusion may come an increase in the future populations of gray wolves along with improved policy and awareness.
Mader,T.R. Wolf reintroduction in the Yellowstone National Park: a historical perspective. Common Man Institute. 1998. 26 pgs.
Since its creation in 1916, the National Park Service (NPS) has had to balance between its two goals, which are to preserve wilderness and nature and to provide the public with access to these wonders in a monitored environment. These two goals tend to create a conflict for the NPS because as soon as one goal is given more priority than the other, the administration of national parks is harshly criticized by the public. The accusation that by allowing people to experience the wilderness, the NPS is corrupting the natural environment is very common, as well, as the criticism towards the lack of government funding to preserve nature and history. However, regardless of arguable criticism and a certain need for improvement, after one hundred years,
Mr. Middleton, a journalist, compiled an article describing, in his opinion, the flaws of the Endangered Species Act. He then attempts to back his opinion with studied analyses, researched facts, and testimonies. To summarize Middleton’s (2011) perspective, “Rather than provide incentives for conservation and environmental stewardship, the Endangered Species Act punishes those whose property contains land that might be used as habitat by endangered and threatened species” (p. 79). This quote is broad and generalized yet draws in readers and forces Middleton to spend the rest of the article backing this statement with more logic based facts.
Landscape fragmentation contributes to loss of migratory corridors, loss of connectivity and natural communities, which all lead to a loss of biodiversity for a region. Conservation of biodiversity must include all levels of diversity: genetic, species, community, and landscape (CNHP 1995). Each complex level is dependent upon and linked to the other levels. In addition, humans are linked to all levels of this hierarchy. A healthy natural and human environment go hand in hand (CNHP 1995). An important step in conservation planning, in order to guarantee both a healthy natural environment as well as a healthy human environment, is recognizing the most endangered elements.
It is early in the morning with the majestic Elk bugles in the distance. The sun kisses the tops of the peaks with the most beautiful gold, and paints the clouds rose red. Men and women who enjoy the outdoors, whether it is hunting or just hiking, help make these types of moments possible. Hunting and the ecosystem is tied closely to conservation of land and animals. The articles on “Hunting and the ecosystem” written by the South Dakota Game Fish and Parks Department (SDGFP), and “Facts and statistics on wildlife conservation” written by Roger Holmes, director of the Fish and Wildlife, touch on how hunting is important to the environment to keep a good balance in the ecosystem.
The Western forests are drastically different from what they were like before the European settlement. In pre-European time, the forests were open and park-like with only 25-35 trees per acre surrounded by areas of open grasslands. One could easily ride a horse through the spacious forest. This, however, is not possible in today's forests. Today, for example the Ponderosa pine forests, have over 500 trees per acre, creating thick dense areas of trees, brush, and bushes (President Bush, 4). The pre-European forests were subject to frequent low inte...
Estimates are that at the turn of the twentieth century, over two million wild horses roamed free in the western United States. However, having no protection from their primary predator, man, by the 1970’s their numbers had dwindled to less than thirty thousand. In 1971, after a massive public uproar, Congress by a unanimous vote enacted the “Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act” (Act) that characterizes wild horses and burros as national treasures and provides for their protection. “Congress finds and declares that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people; and that these horses and burros are fast disappearing from the American scene. It is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands.”
* Daily, Gretchen C., ed. Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997.