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What is biodiversity and why is it
important? Are there threats? What are those threats to biodiversity?
Good questions like these are found on this website, as well as
appropriate, concise answers. Workshop training materials and booklets
inform us of the benefits of biodiversity and healthy ecosystems, and
they teach us how to pitch these points to the community or the
classroom. Valuable links to other publications are clearly marked, as
are simple fact sheets on biodiversity. Biodiversity Project’s site is
worth a visit, brief at minimum if not longer.
Do We Still Need
Nature? The Importance of Biodiversity. Janetos, A. 1997.
Consequences, the Nature and Implications of Environmental Change. U.S.
Global Change Research Information Office (GCRIO). 1(3).
www.gcrio.org/CONSEQUENCES/vol3no1/biodiversity.html
Janetos points out that in the
midst of a world of technological advances, we need to remember how much
our modern lives are dependent on nature. We depend on managed
agriculture and timber in order to extract maximum sustainable yields.
We, also, depend on unmanaged nature where plants may provide medicine
to keep us comfortable or alive. His thesis stated plainly is that to
protect our way of life we must practice restraint in resource
consumption. GCRIO acts as a clearinghouse for selected key documents
and articles or reports generated by the US Government and as such, you
will find many links besides this one that are relevant to research on
nature and implications of environmental change.
Homegrown
Biodiversity. Marinelli, J. April/May 2006. National Wildlife
Federation. 44(3). (Magazine article)
Learn at Homegrown Biodiversity
how your garden should look. Testimonies, from skeptics, claim that
beautiful gardens can be achieved by simply incorporating natural
trunks, limbs, or rocks into the landscape design. Suggestions focus on
simulating niches and habitats to entice native critters in the
vicinity. For example, sheltering birds with brush within which they
can nest and creating spaces that are difficult for foreign, invasive
species to get established. Believers say you don’t have to sacrifice
beauty to have a vital plant and wildlife community.
We like guidebooks, bird guides,
travel guides, and tree and flower guides (and of course sustainability
guides). “Biodiversity Hotspots” is a particularly good guidebook
containing an interactive endangered species map. Click on
“Biodiversity Hotspots” and find a glossary of key words and a species
database, with links the world over to endangered species hotspots. You
can search by species or by hotspots, looking for instance at the West
Coast habitats of various species, and then pinpointing locations or
conditions where they are common residents or where they are most
endangered. Obviously, knowing your own backyard in terms of habitat
and niche are the keys to biodiversity. This website provides a broader
range of biodiversity; it gives you something for your aspirations. | |
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