The Hidden Beauty Of Pollinators

Nature's Kidneys

Image via Wikipedia

From our friends at Rochester Environment, the opening article on their RENenvironment newsletter.

“Nature’s Kidneys”

Though we tend not to consider our wetlands until they get in the way of a development project, they play a unique ecological role.  They are like our kidneys, a filtration organ cleansing our environment.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), using more rigorous language, defines wetlands as "those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or groundwater at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions. Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas." Wetlands | US EPA

Given such a critical role, you’d think we’d be more careful with our wetlands.  Au contraire:  “In the 1600s, over 220 million acres of wetlands are thought to have existed in the lower 48 states. Since then, extensive losses have occurred, and over half our original wetlands have been drained and converted to other uses. Between the 1950s and 1970s an estimated 58,500 acres of wetlands were lost” (EPA 1995).

Nowadays, perhaps feeling a little guilty (or simply better at tweaking our laws), wetland mitigation or offsets help us get around the legality of destroying those inconvenient soggy lands by allowing us to build another wetland someplace else.  That kind of structural relocating makes sense if you’re renovating an old house and want the bathroom on the third floor instead of the first.  Trouble is recreating a wetland that took thousands of years to weave itself into the infinite biological matrix called Nature cannot be so easily replicated by a backhoe and a garden hose. Many experts think that constructed wetlands don’t really capture at all the breathtaking complexity that is a wetland. 

When I think that we have destroyed over 50% of our wetlands here in America during the last five-hundred years, I’m reminded of the total decimation of the Easter Island forests that Jared Diamond describes in “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail.” Generations of Easter Islanders used the once plentiful trees to roll great stone icons across the island.  They didn’t ‘see’ that they were destroying their environment because it happened so slowly.  A single generation of islanders would think the relative loss of trees sustainable—if they thought about such things at all.  But you have to wonder: Halfway through this forest destruction (for Easter Island civilization collapsed when the trees were gone), was there a moment when someone foresaw the calamity to come? 

Just in the same way, we have destroyed much of what was biologically in place when we had a healthy environment.  Now, it’s questionable. We are often such hasty folks that we simply marvel at our particular longevity (some of us make it to one hundred) and forget our life spans are but fleeting moments to Nature.  . 

February second was World Wetlands Day.  “It marks the date of the signing of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea.”  It went by unnoticed in our local media.  But Nature, because it is simply a mindless biological algorithm, never forgets.

FrankRegan@RochesterEnvironment.com

Rare Plants and the Law

Plant Rarity and The Law

Various government laws, regulations and policies protect rare plants. Probably the most surprising aspect of rare plant protection is that, unlike animals, plants are the property of the landowner whether that might be an individual, corporation, or government agency. This means that the protection of rare plants is under control of the landowner unless, in some cases, a government-regulated action is affecting them. Then the government entity regulating the action may require that protection efforts take place to preserve the rare plants and their habitat.
Federal Law

One of the results of the environmental movement of the 1960s and 70s was the enactment of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (see the offsite link in the right-hand column of this page). The Act was designed to prevent the extinction of plants and animals, addressing problems of both exploitation and habitat destruction. The Act defines an endangered species as any species of animal or plant that is in danger of extinction over all or a significant portion of its range. A threatened species is defined as one that is likely to become endangered. The Act regulates the "taking" of endangered and threatened plants on federal land or when they are affected by federal actions or the use of federal funds. Specific protection is outlined in the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and states: It is unlawful for any person subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to:

1. import any such species into, or export any such species from, the United States;
2. remove and reduce to possession any such species from areas under Federal jurisdiction; maliciously damage or destroy any such species on any such area; or remove, cut, dig up, or damage or destroy any such species on any other area in knowing violation of any law or regulation of any state or in the course of any violation of a state criminal trespass law;
3. deliver, receive, carry, transport, or ship in interstate or foreign commerce, by any means whatsoever and in the course of a commercial activity, any such species;
4. sell or offer for sale in interstate or foreign commerce any such species; or
5. violate any regulation pertaining to such species or to any threatened species of plants pursuant to section 4 of this Act and promulgated by the Secretary pursuant to authority provided by this Act.

Exceptions to these provisions include seeds of cultivated threatened plants, under certain circumstances possession of plants in a conservation program by an employee or designate of the Service and those plants exempted by a special rule.

A particularly important section of the Act promotes the conservation of habitats of endangered and threatened species. The Act authorized the acquisition of land for the protection of habitats of these species and directs federal agencies to ensure that their activities or those authorized or funded by them do not jeopardize the continued existence of endangered and threatened species.

The Act prescribes strict procedural guidelines for determination of status and listing of species. These provide that species be listed only after extensive input and review by biologists, the states and the general public. This procedure insures that only species in need of protection are listed, and it provides baseline data from which further population monitoring may proceed.

Presently, 11 New York rare plants are on the federal endangered and threatened list