#the value of biodiversity

[delicatelysublimeforester]

Nurturing Nature

Together for Tomorrow: Environmental Progress Report YouTube Roots of Renewal 2030 Vision Annual Report 2023 Advocacy StatementConnecting People and Nature: The Cultural Value of Afforestation Areas: Advocacy Strategy Nurturing Nature: The Vision and Achievements of Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas As a dedicated non-profit Canadian registered charity, the Friends of the…

[siithiistore]

Value pf Trees

rees hold immense value for our planet and well-being. They are the lungs of the Earth, absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, crucial for our survival. Trees provide habitat for wildlife, support biodiversity, and contribute to ecological balance. Their shade and cooling effects reduce urban heat, conserving energy. Additionally, they prevent soil erosion, purify water, and enhance soil fertility. Economically, trees yield resources like wood, fruits, and nuts. Beyond tangible benefits, trees offer mental and emotional respite, promoting psychological well-being. Recognizing their ecological, economic, and psychological significance, conserving and planting trees is vital for a sustainable and harmonious world.

[headspace-hotel]

If the landscape actually was what people valued it to be, the global ecosystem would surely collapse. If suburbs were truly only houses, yards and trees selected by the homeowner, if pastures grew only the forages intended by the farmer, if agricultural land grew only crops, if a ditch next to an overpass was simply a ditch

If all the places we think of as "no longer wild" actually were, if the biodiversity we thought was gone actually was gone, life on Earth would not be able to sustain itself. The unintended and random plants, the wild weeds of lost and empty places, they hold us tightly, sustaining the few and meager scraps of symbiotic relationships that keep the Earth alive

The ditch beside the road is no longer a serene wetland. The wetland was bulldozed and destroyed and now it is a ditch, dirty and strewn with garbage. But because nobody looks closely, almost nobody sees...A few rushes and sedges have decided to grow here, there's a clump of stubborn and stunted cattails, and there in the weeds, a thickety willow cradling a blackbird's nest.

Easy to love the pristine wilderness in distant preserves, but will someone love this abused and ugly place? Will someone be moved to protect the wild of the roadside ditch and vacant lot as passionately as they protect the primeval forest?

Easy to see the importance of the Amazon rainforest for the very air in our lungs, but who will see the moss that grows between the bricks in the wall of their run-down apartment and realize, It is your oxygen that I breathe?

I read a paper one time suggesting that, even though the idea of monoculture is harmful through its influence on agricultural practice, monoculture does not actually exist, because in practice the weeds prevent it from becoming a reality.

I was thinking of that again, and wondering what it would be like if the weeds actually obeyed us...

[reasonsforhope]

"When considering the great victories of America’s conservationists, we tend to think of the sights and landscapes emblematic of the West, but there’s also a rich history of acknowledging the value of the wetlands of America’s south.

These include such vibrant ecosystems as the Everglades, the Great Dismal Swamp, the floodplains of the Congaree River, and “America’s Amazon” also known as the “Land Between the Rivers”—recently preserved forever thanks to generous donors and work by the Nature Conservancy (TNC).

With what the TNC described as an “unprecedented gift,” 8,000 acres of pristine wetlands where the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers join, known as the Mobile Delta, were purchased for the purpose of conservation for $15 million. The owners chose to sell to TNC rather than to the timber industry which planned to log in the location.

“This is one of the most important conservation victories that we’ve ever been a part of,” said Mitch Reid, state director for The Nature Conservancy in Alabama.

The area is filled with oxbow lakes, creeks, and swamps alongside the rivers, and they’re home to so many species that it ranks as one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, such that Reid often jokes that while it has rightfully earned the moniker “America’s Amazon” the Amazon should seriously consider using the moniker “South America’s Mobile.”

“This tract represents the largest remaining block of land that we can protect in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. First and foremost, TNC is doing this work for our fellow Alabamians who rightly pride themselves on their relationship with the outdoors,” said Reid, who told Advance Local that it can connect with other protected lands to the north, in an area called the Red Hills.

“Conservation lands in the Delta positions it as an anchor in a corridor of protected lands stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Appalachian Mountains and has long been a priority in TNC’s ongoing efforts to establish resilient and connected landscapes across the region.”

At the moment, no management plan has been sketched out, but TNC believes it must allow the public to use it for recreation as much as possible.

The money for the purchase was provided by a government grant and a generous, anonymous donor, along with $5.2 million from the Holdfast Collective—the conservation funding body of Patagonia outfitters."

Video via Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, August 7, 2020

Article via Good News Network, February 14, 2024

[dailyoverview]

Clouds float over the Kikori River Delta in southern Papua New Guinea. Part of the Gulf of Papua, this coastal mangrove forest is considered one of the most important wetland regions in the Asia-Pacific due to its cultural and biodiversity value. It is a habitat for Indo-Pacific humpback and Australian snubfin dolphins, both listed as “vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

-7.428366°, 144.428927°

Source imagery: Airbus Space

[typhlonectes]

These Salamanders Steal Genes and Can Have up to Five Extra Sets of Chromosomes

Unisexual salamanders in the genus Ambystoma  appear to be the only creatures in the world that reproduce the way they do. Researchers know how, but the why is still being figured out.

Katy Greenwald: These are all pond breeding salamanders. They are really abundant in the Great Lakes. They are gene thieves. They're stealing DNA from other species. It is known as kleptogenesis. They are usually just called the unisexual complex or the unisexual Ambystoma. They are not a species, actually, because they break all the rules of what a species should be able to do. They are a really unique lineage. As far as we know there is nothing else in the world that reproduces in this way. They are five or six million year old group of animals. As a biologist, you learn all these rules and intro bio and then you learn about these things that just break the rules. In the water, the males will produce sperm at offers, which are little sperm packets that they sort of put down on on leaves and sticks and things like that in the pond. And the females will pick those up internally in their cloaca and there's internal fertilization, and then they'll lay fertilized eggs, which will develop into larvae just like tadpoles do in frogs. And these unisex rules will be in the same ponds at the same time as these normal sexually reproducing species. And they will actually pick up the sperm at offers that are produced by the males of the other species that just triggers egg development. So their eggs are laid and they develop, but they don't actually include any of the males genetic material and they produce offspring that just have the same DNA as the mom. But a smaller proportion of the time they actually do add the males genomes, and so then the offspring come out with extra chromosomes. So they can have anywhere from two to five full sets of chromosomes from up to five different species. And these salamanders seem to have the benefits of asexuality in that they're all female. Their populations can grow really fast, but they have this mechanism to add additional genetic variation that they're able to grab from these species that they coexist with. If there's one thing that we learn from studying biodiversity, it's that there is amazing variation in nature. There are all kinds of species reproducing in all kinds of ways, using all kinds of different approaches. And I think that's something we could certainly learn from in human society, that valuing and celebrating that diversity is a great part of being a biologist...

via: https://www.scientificamerican.com/video/these-salamanders-steal-genes-and-can-have-up-to-five-extra-sets-of-chromosomes

[exhaled-spirals]

« To mention the global loss of biodiversity, that is to say, the disappearance of life on our planet, as one of our problems, along with air pollution or ocean acidification, is absurd—like a doctor listing the death of his patient as one symptom among others.

The ecological catastrophe cannot be reduced to the climate crisis. We must think about the disappearance of life in a global way. About two-thirds of insects, wild mammals and trees disappeared in a few years, a few decades and a few millennia, respectively. This mass extinction is not mainly caused by rising temperatures, but by the devastation of natural habitats.

Suppose we managed to invent clean and unlimited energy. This technological feat would be feted by the vast majority of scientists, synonymous in their eyes with a drastic reduction in CO2 emissions. In my opinion, it would lead to an even worse disaster. I am deeply convinced that, given the current state of our appetites and values, this energy would be used to intensify our gigantic project of systemic destruction of planetary life. Isn't that what we've set out to do—replace forests with supermarket parking lots, turn the planet into a landfill? What if, to cap it all, energy was free?

[...C]limate change has emerged as our most important ecological battle [...] because it is one that can perpetuate the delusional idea that we are faced with an engineering problem, in need of technological solutions. At the heart of current political and economic thought lies the idea that an ideal world would be a world in which we could continue to live in the same way, with fewer negative externalities. This is insane on several levels. Firstly because it is impossible. We can't have infinite growth in a finite world. We won't. But also, and more importantly, it is not desirable. Even if it were sustainable, the reality we construct is hell. [...]

It is often said that our Western world is desacralised. In reality, our civilisation treats the technosphere with almost devout reverence. And that's worse. We perceive the totality of reality through the prism of a hegemonic science, convinced that it “says” the only truth.

The problem is that technology is based on a very strange principle, so deeply ingrained in us that it remains unexpressed: no brakes are acceptable, what can be done must be done. We don't even bother to seriously and collectively debate the advisability of such "advances". We are under a spell. And we are avoiding the essential question: is this world in the making, standardised and computed, overbuilt and predictable, stripped of stars and birds, desirable?

To confine science to the search for "solutions" so we can continue down the same path is to lack both imagination and ambition. Because the “problem” we face doesn't seem to me, at this point, to be understood. No hope is possible if we don't start by questioning our assumptions, our values, our appetites, our symbols... [...] Let's stop pretending that the numerous and diverse human societies that have populated this planet did not exist. Certainly, some of them have taken the wrong route. But ours is the first to forge ahead towards guaranteed failure. »

— Aurélien Barrau, particle physicist and philosopher, in an interview in Télérama about his book L'Hypothèse K

[beguines]

Today, strawberries have replaced much of the citrus and olive trees in the strip, and despite the relatively small area of farmland used for this sector, it enjoys high economic and social value. In all of the ways that citrus cultivation has been targeted, strawberries seem designed to survive Israel's eco-colonial practices. Strawberries are able to survive on partially saline water, they have faster production cycles, are easier to cultivate and replant after destruction and uprooting, are more mobile after moments of displacement, require less space and distance between each planted crop, and enable farmers in Gaza's northern peripheries and along the buffer zones to remain visible to the observing Israeli occupation forces. As a crop with limited historical roots in the country, it adapts well and is highly versatile. The use of compost for the cultivation of strawberries enables significant increase in fruit productivity, saving Gazan farmers the use of precious water supplies and decreasing its need for the use of fertilizers.

Despite this, the conditions of Gaza's ongoing colonial isolation and erasure make it increasingly impossible for farmers to sustain their livelihoods off of the land, even with strawberry production. In today's Gaza, as the agricultural export industry is fully reliant on the Israeli permit system, strawberries are slowly being replaced with other low-growing, fast-yielding, cost-effective and high-demand fruits and vegetables. Indeed, as a colleague at the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the largest agricultural development institution in Palestine, told me during my time in Gaza, the most recent crop to slowly begin its replacement of strawberries in this line of forced colonial transition is pineapple—with the first pineapple farm planted in Khan Younes in 2017.

Examining the conditions that make strawberry production more practical and fuel the transition from citrus production requires examining the ongoing Israeli colonization of natural resources that supplant and suppress traditional modes of relating to nature. Witnesses of Israeli neo-colonial violence, the disappearing orchards in Gaza mark its new disconnected reality. The transition from the orange to the strawberry—and perhaps later to pineapple—is more than a shift in markets and produce. They affect the history and identity of Palestinians in Gaza. The links between cultivation and national or communal identity are well-known and documented in other contexts, including their intersection with colonial nation-branding. But in the context of aggressive climate change the instabilities, tensions, and erasures that come with transitions in vegetation are growing increasingly stark. For example, in the case of the Swiss canton of Valais, global heating has resulted in the growth of cacti, Opuntia, that are proliferating on the mountainsides of the canton, encroaching on natural reserves and causing a biodiversity threat. Used to "seeing their mountainsides covered with snow in winter and edelweiss flowers in summer" warmer and drier temperatures have given way to what is named in media coverage as an "invasive species colonizing the slopes." Launching an uprooting campaign in 2022, the press release stressed that "this invasive and non-native plant is not welcome in the perimeter of prairies and dry pastures of national importance." Evidently the discourse mobilized is dominated by aggressive language of aliens and invasion, which contributes to the use of violent and war-like metaphors to push for pre-emptive and combative control. In the Gazan case, the transition, as well as local responses to it, are less pronounced and weeded through long-term colonial policies imposed by the occupation. That said, the transition to strawberry cultivation nevertheless carries a similar ecological, cultural, and socio-political impact. In place of the orange, the strawberry is surfacing as the symbol of Gaza, redrawing the boundaries of the identity of its besieged inhabitants. Whereas in the past the orange was a continuous link between Gaza and the rest of historic Palestine, with deep generational roots and a symbol of steadfast and continuous presence, the abrupt transition from oranges to strawberries distances Gaza from the constructed identity and vegetal knowledge production of Palestinian farmers elsewhere. Put differently, this symbolic and political transition at the level of fruit production can be seen as another mechanism through which Israeli neo-colonial violence reifies Gaza as an enclave: divided and partitioned from the rest of Palestine.

Shourideh C. Molavi, Environmental Warfare in Gaza: Colonial Violence and New Landscapes of Resistance

[chase-prairie]

North American friends, please don’t mistake UK “let our native weeds grow freely” as blanket permission to claim US non-native weeds as equally beneficial. They don’t have the same value to our native pollinators

No Mow May is a huge case study on cross-Atlantic mistranslation

Listen to Dr. Sheila Colla, NA native bee expert, instead of UK honeybee people:

“Coming back from the biodiversity crisis will require active stewardship, not neglect, of altered landscapes.”

I permanently keep this article open as a tab on my phone because I reference it so much

yes, something flowering is better than nothing, but all this money, research, PR, and literal seeding of weeds going on could instead be used to support our actual native bees, instead of offering them non-native, poorly nutritious diets that can literally lead them to canibalize their own eggs

[fatehbaz]

Despite its green image, Ireland has surprisingly little forest. [...] [M]ore than 80% of the island of Ireland was [once] covered in trees. [...] [O]f that 11% of the Republic of Ireland that is [now] forested, the vast majority (9% of the country) is planted with [non-native] spruces like the Sitka spruce [in commercial plantations], a fast growing conifer originally from Alaska which can be harvested after just 15 years. Just 2% of Ireland is covered with native broadleaf trees.

Text by: Martha O’Hagan Luff. “Ireland has lost almost all of its native forests - here’s how to bring them back.” The Conversation. 24 February 2023. [Emphasis added.]

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[I]ndustrial [...] oil palm plantations [...] have proliferated in tropical regions in many parts of the world, often built at the expense of mangrove and humid forest lands, with the aim to transform them from 'worthless swamp' to agro-industrial complexes [...]. Another clear case [...] comes from the southernmost area in the Colombian Pacific [...]. Here, since the early 1980s, the forest has been destroyed and communities displaced to give way to oil palm plantations. Inexistent in the 1970s, by the mid-1990s they had expanded to over 30,000 hectares. The monotony of the plantation - row after row of palm as far as you can see, a green desert of sorts - replaced the diverse, heterogenous and entangled world of forest and communities.

Text by: Arturo Escobar. "Thinking-Feeling with the Earth: Territorial Struggles and the Ontological Dimension of the Epistemologies of the South." Revista de Antropologia Iberoamericana Volume 11 Issue 1. 2016. [Emphasis added.]

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But efforts to increase global tree cover to limit climate change have skewed towards erecting plantations of fast-growing trees [...] [because] planting trees can demonstrate results a lot quicker than natural forest restoration. [...] [But] ill-advised tree planting can unleash invasive species [...]. [In India] [t]o maximize how much timber these forests yielded, British foresters planted pines from Europe and North America in extensive plantations in the Himalayan region [...] and introduced acacia trees from Australia [...]. One of these species, wattle (Acacia mearnsii) [...] was planted in [...] the Western Ghats. This area is what scientists all a biodiversity hotspot – a globally rare ecosystem replete with species. Wattle has since become invasive and taken over much of the region’s mountainous grasslands. Similarly, pine has spread over much of the Himalayas and displaced native oak trees while teak has replaced sal, a native hardwood, in central India. Both oak and sal are valued for [...] fertiliser, medicine and oil. Their loss [...] impoverished many [local and Indigenous people]. [...]

India’s national forest policy [...] aims for trees on 33% of the country’s area. Schemes under this policy include plantations consisting of a single species such as eucalyptus or bamboo which grow fast and can increase tree cover quickly, demonstrating success according to this dubious measure. Sometimes these trees are planted in grasslands and other ecosystems where tree cover is naturally low. [...] The success of forest restoration efforts cannot be measured by tree cover alone. The Indian government’s definition of “forest” still encompasses plantations of a single tree species, orchards and even bamboo, which actually belongs to the grass family. This means that biennial forest surveys cannot quantify how much natural forest has been restored, or convey the consequences of displacing native trees with competitive plantation species or identify if these exotic trees have invaded natural grasslands which have then been falsely recorded as restored forests. [...] Planting trees does not necessarily mean a forest is being restored. And reviving ecosystems in which trees are scarce is important too.

Text by: Dhanapal Govindarajulu. "India was a tree planting laboratory for 200 years - here are the results." The Conversation. 10 August 2023. [Emphasis added.]

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Nations and companies are competing to appropriate the last piece of available “untapped” forest that can provide the most amount of “environmental services.” [...] When British Empire forestry was first established as a disciplinary practice in India, [...] it proscribed private interests and initiated a new system of forest management based on a logic of utilitarian [extraction] [...]. Rather than the actual survival of plants or animals, the goal of this forestry was focused on preventing the exhaustion of resource extraction. [...]

Text by: Daniel Fernandez and Alon Schwabe. "The Offsetted." e-flux Architecture (Positions). November 2013. [Emphasis added.]

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At first glance, the statistics tell a hopeful story: Chile’s forests are expanding. […] On the ground, however, a different scene plays out: monocultures have replaced diverse natural forests [...]. At the crux of these [...] narratives is the definition of a single word: “forest.” [...] Pinochet’s wave of [...] [laws] included Forest Ordinance 701, passed in 1974, which subsidized the expansion of tree plantations [...] and gave the National Forestry Corporation control of Mapuche lands. This law set in motion an enormous expansion in fiber-farms, which are vast expanses of monoculture plantations Pinus radiata and Eucalyptus species grown for paper manufacturing and timber. [T]hese new plantations replaced native forests […]. According to a recent study in Landscape and Urban Planning, timber plantations expanded by a factor of ten from 1975 to 2007, and now occupy 43 percent of the South-central Chilean landscape. [...] While the confusion surrounding the definition of “forest” may appear to be an issue of semantics, Dr. Francis Putz [...] warns otherwise in a recent review published in Biotropica. […] Monoculture plantations are optimized for a single product, whereas native forests offer [...] water regulation, hosting biodiversity, and building soil fertility. [...][A]ccording to Putz, the distinction between plantations and native forests needs to be made clear. “[...] [A]nd the point that plantations are NOT forests needs to be made repeatedly [...]."

Text by: Julian Moll-Rocek. “When forests aren’t really forests: the high cost of Chile’s tree plantations.” Mongabay. 18 August 2014. [Emphasis added.]

[marzipanandminutiae]

can "activists" please stop trying to fuck with the empty frames at the Gardner museum. this is the second time the museum has had to close early to keep that from happening

like. first of all, the art museum climate protests that have happened so far piss me off despite the fact that I agree with their overall goals, because the messages in interviews all boil down to "how DARE you VALUE ART when BAD THINGS ARE HAPPENING, ordinary museum-goer?!" but at least they've taken pains to not actually damage anything important (throwing soup on modern, sealed cases or glass barriers instead of the art itself, etc.)

the frames at the Gardner? are art in their own right. they are mostly very old and made by often-unacknowledged craftsmen who were incredibly talented. they're not the same as a modern barrier. AND they're there as a reminder of a time when some jerks stole art from the public so rich assholes could wall it up in private collections so only they got to enjoy it

like go puncture a CEO's tires or something that actually reaches the people responsible for this mess instead of ordinary humans (who probably already agree with you!) just trying to do the very Human Thing of appreciating art

EDIT: I double-checked, and last time their Thing was "why are people still talking about the Gardner heist, but NOBODY is talking about biodiversity loss?!?!?!"

which is just.

they are? just not usually in the same breath as an unsolved art theft case?

[delicatelysublimeforester]

Embracing Truth and Reconciliation: A Call to Action on September 30

[anarchywoofwoof]

yesterday, november 18 2023 was the first day in recorded history where the global 2m surface temperature exceeded 2 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 baseline.

the 1850-1900 period serves as a baseline for the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) primarily because it represents the pre-industrial era, just before the widespread industrialization that began in the late 19th century.

this era is important for understanding the effects of climate change because it provides a relatively stable reference point for the earth's climate system before human activities - particularly the burning of fossil fuels - began to significantly alter the composition of earth's atmosphere. therefore, this period offers some of the earliest reliable meteorological data, allowing scientists to establish a baseline climate against which current and future changes can be compared.

the last time it was close to this hot was +1.99°C above the baseline, on Feb. 28, 2016 during hottest part of El Nino

yesterday, the value was +2.01°C before the hottest part of El Nino.

the 2°C threshold is widely regarded as a critical limit beyond which climate change impacts become increasingly severe and potentially irreversible. this includes increasing extreme weather events, over time a 40~ foot sea-level rise, and massive loss of biodiversity. some of which we are seeing take place before our eyes right now, every single day. all of these headlines are from this year alone:

Ocean scientists concerned over uptick of whale deaths on Northeast coasts

Penguin Chicks Are Dying Off as Antarctic Sea Ice Disappears

More than 10 billion snow crabs starved to death off the coast of Alaska. But why?

Texas oysters in dire straits

Tens of Thousands of Dead Fish Wash Ashore on Gulf Coast in Texas

Drone footage shows millions of dead fish blanket river

Mass death of Amazonian dolphins prompts fears for vulnerable species

‘Crisis period': Dead or dying marine mammals increasingly washing up on SoCal beaches

bear in mind that this is because we're already seeing a near-average of 1.5°c warming this year. this was not expected until the year 2050. like.. it's happening now.

the 1.5°c warming threshold, which is often discussed alongside the 2°c threshold, holds its own significance in the context of climate change and the efforts to mitigate its impacts. this threshold was brought into prominence by the paris agreement, which aimed to limit global warming to well below 2°c, preferably to 1.5°c, compared to pre-industrial levels.

we have effectively blown past this barricade and are barreling toward another. the capitalist train is leaving the tracks and taking us with it.

[headspace-hotel]

it is pretty disappointing to read about conservation efforts in the USA vs. many countries in, say, Africa or many tropical regions of the globe, because it feels like Americans really don't appreciate or notice the value of their animals and ecosystems.

It is really ENCOURAGING to see how much progress is made with conservation around the world, but it casts the USA's ecosystems in a sad light. Red states' governments are largely totally indifferent to preserving their ecosystems, even though some of the reddest states have the most biodiverse and globally unique ecosystems. It's individual people organizing that's doing so much of the work

It's like Americans understand why it's important to save lions, tigers, elephants and zebras, but when it comes to cougars, bison, wapiti and wolves, it's like "Ehhhhh" and caring about them at all makes you a liberal commie.

anyway it feels like reintroducing wolves, bison etc. to historical parts of their range should be more of a priority and it's not and it makes me sad

[reasonsforhope]

"Despite the Central Appalachia ecosystem being historically famous as coal country, under this diverse broadleaf canopy lies a rich, biodiverse world of native plants helping to fill North America’s medicinal herb cabinet.

And it turns out that the very communities once reliant on the coalfields are now bringing this botanical diversity to the country.

“Many different Appalachian people, stretching from pre-colonization to today, have tended, harvested, sold, and used a vast number of forest botanicals like American ginseng, ramps, black cohosh, and goldenseal,” said Shannon Bell, Virginia Tech professor in the Dept. of Sociology. “These plants have long been integral to many Appalachians’ livelihoods and traditions.”

50% of the medicinal herbs, roots, and barks in the North American herbal supply chain are native to the Appalachian Mountains, and the bulk of these species are harvested or grown in Central Appalachia, which includes southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, far-southwest Virginia, and east Tennessee.

The United Plant Savers, a nonprofit with a focus on native medicinal plants and their habitats, has identified many of the most popular forest medicinals as species of concern due to their declining populations.

Along with the herbal supply chain being largely native to Appalachia, the herb gatherers themselves are also native [to Appalachia, not Native American specifically], but because processing into medicine and seasonings takes place outside the region, the majority of the profits from the industry do too.

In a press release on Bell’s superb research and advocacy work within Appalachia’s botanical communities, she refers back to the moment that her interest in the industry and the region sprouted; when like many of us, she was out in a nearby woods waiting out the pandemic.

“My family and I spent a lot of time in the woods behind our house during quarantine,” Bell said. “We observed the emergence of all the spring ephemerals in the forest understory – hepatica, spring beauty, bloodroot, trillium, mayapple. I came to appreciate the importance of the region’s botanical biodiversity more than ever, and realized I wanted to incorporate this new part of my life into my research.”

With co-investigator, John Munsell at VA Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environment, Bell’s project sought to identify ways that Central Appalachian communities could retain more of the profits from the herbal industry while simultaneously ensuring that populations of at-risk forest botanicals not only survive, but thrive and expand in the region.

Bell conducted participant observation and interviews with wild harvesters and is currently working on a mail survey with local herb buyers. She also piloted a ginseng seed distribution program, and helped a wild harvester write a grant proposal to start a forest farm.

“Economic development in post-coal communities often focuses on other types of energy development, like fracking and natural gas pipelines, or on building prisons and landfills. Central Appalachia is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. I think that placing a greater value on this biodiversity is key to promoting a more sustainable future for the region,” Bell told VA Tech press.

Armed with a planning grant of nearly half a million dollars, Bell and collaborators are specifically targeting forest farming as a way to achieve that sustainable future.

Finally, enlisting support from the nonprofit organization Appalachian Sustainable Development, Virginia Tech, the City of Norton, a sculpture artist team, and various forest botanicals practitioners in her rolodex, Bell organized the creation of a ‘living monument’ along Flag Rock Recreation Area in Norton, Virginia.

An interpretive trail, the monument tells the story of the historic uses that these wild botanicals had for the various societies that have inhabited Appalachia, and the contemporary value they still hold for people today."

-via Good News Network, September 12, 2024