 |
|
One way to help species facing habitat loss: 'escape routes'
Preserving wilderness areas and establishing 'biological corridors' between them will help wildlife move to safety as climate changes occur.
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitorfrom the June 21, 2007 edition
Page 1 of 2
Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve, Costa Rica - As the world warms from human-emitted greenhouse gases during this century, one-quarter of all living things could disappear, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Robust, genetically diverse populations have a much better chance of weathering this climate change than those that are inbred and few in number, scientists say. So the best way to help wildlife persist through this trying time is to give it ample room to feed, breed, and multiply.
This means preserving tracts of wilderness large enough to establish healthy populations. And it means establishing "biological corridors" between wilderness areas – especially up mountainsides and through north-south pathways – so wildlife can move as climate changes.
Groups around the world are working to establish these wildlife highways, with varying degrees of success. In North America, the Wildlands Project is pushing for a huge "Yellowstone-to-Yukon" wildlife corridor. In Central America, conservationists are slowly and sporadically working on the Meso-American Biological Corridor. The dream: A monkey should be able to go up a tree in Panama and not have to climb down until it reaches Mexico. The grand vision of the IUCN is an uninterrupted connection between Argentina and Alaska along the hemisphere's western mountain ranges.
But the golden toad's disappearance has weakened one of the assumptions underlying these efforts: Setting aside a reserve doesn't necessarily shield species from extinction. Wildlife is vulnerable even in protected areas.
"It's not enough," says Alan Pounds, scientist-in-residence at Costa Rica's Cloud Forest Preserve. "You have to consider the entire landscape." Indeed, scientists recently found that pesticides sprayed over lowland banana and pineapple plantations in Costa Rica waft up to the highlands. In some areas, they reached concentrations 10 times higher than right next to the plantation. Studies show that frogs living downwind from pesticide plumes have a greater chance of disappearing than those that don't.
And for highly specialized animals, like those trapped atop tropical mountains, corridors will help little. In these cases, some scientists call for an "amphibian ark," a network of zoos that breed amphibians in captivity with the goal of one day reestablishing wild populations.
|
RSS feed
