Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Christopher Ketcham writes on our continuing anthropogenic (human-caused) extinction, and the ineffectual and often misguided attempts at appeasement for the destroyers of wilderness and consumers of the Earth’s bounty. E.O. Wilson’s push for parks and wilderness connected by corridors: half for us, half for them, might just be the answer.
While stopping short of full endangered species protections for the Greater Sage-Grouse, the Obama-era Fish and Wildlife Service implemented land use plans to restrict energy development and grazing in the expanse of northwestern U.S. desert called the Sagebrush Sea, depicted in a 2015 documentary. The Trump Interior Department attempted to amend that plan to open up more commercial activities. We feature here an essay on Wyoming’s core plan attempts to salvage the state’s last populations in a landscape dominated by energy development.
Sick, starving and dying sea lion pups are washing up on the shores of California in record numbers this year. The culprit? An unusual blob of record warm water parked off the North Pacific Coast for a year and a half, affecting circulation and weather patterns with no relief in sight. Hence, sardine fisheries have collapsed with wildlife heading north.
The amazing bison, revered by native societies, survives despite its continued sacrifice at the demand of the cattle industry. While slaughter continues at the borders of Yellowstone National Park, bison managers consider alternative management policies. Also watch the documentary, “Silencing the Thunder.”
The NOAA is shutting down cod fishing for six months, from Provincetown, Mass., up to the Canadian border, in an effort to reverse plummeting numbers of the iconic fish in the Gulf of Maine. Jeffery Bolster argues humans have depredated the Atlantic’s fish stocks for centuries, and the focus on short-term fixes only compounds the problem.
The film “Green” documents deforestation and orangutan extinction in the Indonesian rainforest. It is a silent film (without narration) presenting the treasures of rainforest biodiversity and the devastating impacts of logging and land clearing for palm oil plantations.
Reviled by ranchers and hunters, managed through “harvesting” by state wildlife agencies, with ardent conservationists its last hope, the gray wolf has cut a controversial wake in the North American landscape ever since it was reintroduced from Canada in 1995. Watch the film on Earth Focus.