Biodiversity conference links Bay and global habitat issues
Karey Harris is the toxics subcommittee staffer with the Chesapeake Research Consortium at the Chesapeake Bay Program office.
Imagine seeing a video of a frog in the Amazon that was
believed to be extinct until she was caught on this tape. You see her, abdomen full of eggs, struggle
to get to water to lay her eggs. What a
find! How exciting for that scientist behind the camera! Then you are told that she was ill, died soon
after the video was taken, and no other frogs of her species have been found
since. She is currently in a jar in the
Smithsonian. Just an instant after you
expect to hear a success story, you realize that you have just watched a
species go extinct from the planet. That
happened to me last week, and this little frog tugged at my heart like no amphibian
before.
I had the pleasure of attending the 9th National
Conference on Science, Policy, and the Environment held by the National Council for Science and the Environment
(NCSE) at the Reagan Building in Washington,
D.C. on December 8-10. This year’s conference topic
was “Biodiversity in a Rapidly Changing World,” during which, among other
activities, I watched the frog go extinct.
So why tell the sad story?
As species go extinct worldwide, we are losing biodiversity as
well. Biodiversity
is lengthily defined as “the variability among living organisms from all
sources … and the ecological complexes of which they are a part; this includes
diversity within species, between species, and of ecosystems.” Without all the
words, a place that has good biodiversity has many different species all living
in a small area. A coral reef is probably
the most vivid example, with its multitudes of coral, anemones, and fish. An environment with very little biodiversity
may be as bleak as a cornfield, all dominated by the same species with a few
others thrown in. Biodiversity is often
used as a measure of ecosystem health.
As biodiversity decreases, the ecosystem’s health and stability
decreases as well.
(Check out an
example of good biodiversity from MarineBio, versus an
example of bad biodiversity from Holistic Management.)
The three-day conference focused on ways to preserve
biodiversity worldwide. Topics covered
policy and legislation, scientific research gaps, and communication to the
public. Speakers who made their case for
making changes and saving biodiversity included the director of the
Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and a Pulitzer Prize-winning
author! Each day after the speakers, various
breakout sessions were offered to give each participant an individual
experience. I could write pages on what
I learned in those discussions, and I have a stack of literature on my desk
that I still need to read!
In addition to new things, I heard several familiar
themes: less pollution, more preserved land, better land use, teach the public
how to be more environmentally responsible, and so on. Some of these are ideas we
focus on here at the Bay Program. Since
this conference had a global focus, we must not be so far off base in our ideas
of how to save our Bay. I hope that one
day the world, and the Bay, will resemble the thriving systems they once were,
in part because this conference had something good to say.
Rep. Wittman visits the Bay Program office
On Tuesday, Rep. Rob Wittman from Virginia presented at the quarterly Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee meeting about his bill, the Chesapeake Bay Accountability and Recovery Act. Check out a clip from his presentation here:
After the meeting he visited the Bay Program office to hear some presentations and meet some of our staff. We thank Rep. Wittman for his visit!
Forest buffers featured at latest Forestry Workgroup meeting
Judy Okay
is a riparian forest buffer specialist on detail from the Virginia
Department of Forestry working at the Chesapeake Bay Program office.
In early October the search was on for a site in the Bay
watershed for the November 18 Bay Program Forestry
Workgroup meeting. Educational workgroup meetings are good because members
can get out of their offices and visit the fields and forests of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. After a few calls, the Virginia Tech
Mare Equine
Center in Middleburg, Virginia,
separated itself from other choices. It was a perfect location for the forestry
workgroup meeting because it has a 23-acre riparian forest
buffer, and forest buffers would be the focus of the meeting.
Riparian forest buffers are a topic near and dear to my
everyday life. People often tell me I live in “buffer land” because my job is
very specific to that area of forestry.
I really am very interested in watersheds as holistic ecosystems and
think of forest buffers as the integral link between what happens on the land
and how those actions are reflected in the water quality of streams and rivers.
Along with other Bay
goals, the
riparian forest buffer goal will fall short of the 10,000-mile commitment
made for the 2010 deadline. The number of riparian buffer miles achieved
annually has dropped off from 1,122 miles in 2002 to 385 miles in 2007. Since Forestry
Workgroup members represent state forestry agencies, NGOs, and other groups
interested in Bay forests, they are the logical group to come up with ways to
address barriers that stand in the way of achieving state riparian forest
buffer commitments. We spent the afternoon of the Forestry Workgroup meeting discussing
the barriers to riparian forest buffer plantings and ways to eliminate those
barriers.
The Forestry Workgroup meeting also featured two
presentations on new riparian forest buffer tools intended for use by local
governments, watershed groups, and local foresters. The first presentation, given
by Fred Irani from the U.S. Geological Survey team at the Bay Program office, was
about the RB Mapper, a new tool developed for assessing riparian forest buffers
along shorelines and streambanks. The other presentation, given by Rob Feldt
from Maryland DNR, was about a tool for targeting the placement of riparian
forest buffers for more effective nutrient removal. (You can read all
of the briefing papers and materials from the Forestry Workgroup meeting at the
Bay Program’s website.)
After all the business, it was time to experience the Mare Center,
their streamside forest buffer and the rolling hills of Virginia. A tractor and wagon provided transportation
to the pasture to see the buffer, which was planted in 2000 with 2,500 tree
seedlings. It was a cold and windy day, and there were actually snowflakes in
the air. We had planned to ride the wagon out and walk back, however, with a
little bit of a bribe, the wagon driver waited while we checked out the forest
buffer for survival, growth, and general effectiveness for stream protection.
The Forestry Workgroup meeting was productive, educational,
and enjoyable. How often can we say that
about group meetings? Sometimes it is
worth the extra effort to provide a meeting place with an outdoor component that
conveys the endeavors that the Bay Program workgroups are all about.