Monthly Archives: April 2009

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Maine High Peaks Initiative: an opportunity to assess the impact of climate change in large landscape conservation

Maine High Peaks Initiative:  an opportunity to assess the impact of climate change in large landscape conservation

 

The focal area of the Maine High Peaks Initiative serves multiple local and regional conservation, monitoring, and research roles under current and future climatic regimes.  The 230,000 acre landscape extent of the area is sufficient in size on its own to support viable plant and animal populations from the full spectrum of northern hardwood ecological communities transitioning to boreal ecological communities.  Furthermore, the area is a vital ecological, habitat, and landscape linkage uniting ecological pattern and process across the Acadian forest region spanning the Adirondacks, New England states, Quebec, and the Maritime Provinces. 

 

Patterns of human land use and development to the north and south have contributed to its significance to regional connectivity.  In the face of climate change, this area has great potential as a point of landscape and ecological linkage likely to be important to the necessary range shifts of animal and plant populations from the south to the north.

 

The area’s multiple conservation and research roles all derive from the combined effects of mountain and lowland topography and latitudinal position within the transitional northern forest. This High Peaks Region is so named because it has 10 of Maine’s 14 peaks over 4000 feet.  This landscape includes hardwood, mixed wood, and softwood forests across the mountain gradient and the plant and animal communities associated with these topographic conditions and broad forest cover types.  Because of the Appalachian Trail, the Navy Survival Center and topography, there are no north south roads through this 230,000 acres area. Ecological diversity ranging from riparian ecosystems supporting anadromous fish to alpine zones where blackpoll warbler and Bicknell’s thrush breed provide a ready made long term ecological study area likely to provide early signals of climate change impacts on biological diversity and range shifts.

 

The size, physical and ecological diversity, transitional position at the continental scale, and natural cover in the context of human land use change, elevate this conservation initiative to national significance under current conditions.  Under a changing climate its potential to facilitate plant and animal range shifts through its lowland and high elevation ecosystems further adds to its long-term conservation value.  As a likely signal of ecological responses to climate change, this site is ideal for early detection of climate change effects and long term data to assist conservation planning across the continent.

Peter McKinley, Ph.D., Conservation Biologist, in conversation with Lloyd Griscom.

 

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Australia to create climate corridor


UK

Australia to build climate corridor

Mon Jul 9, 2007 11:07am BST

By Rob Taylor

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Australia will create a wildlife corridor spanning the continent to allow animals and plants to flee the effects of global warming, scientists said on Monday.

The 2,800-kilometre (1,740 mile) climate “spine”, approved by state and national governments, will link the country’s entire east coast, from the snow-capped Australian alps in the south to the tropical north — the distance from London to Romania.

“A lot of that forest and vegetation spine is already there. But there are still blockages,” David Lindenmayer, a professor of conservation biology, told Reuters of the plan.

“The effects of climate change will likely to be less severe in systems that have some resilience and that we haven’t gone in and buggered-up.”

The creation of the corridor was agreed by state and federal governments this year amid international warnings that the country — already the world’s driest inhabited continent — is suffering from an accelerated Greenhouse effect.

Climate scientists have predicted temperatures rising by up to 6.7 degrees Celsius (12 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2080 in the country’s vast outback interior. A 10-year drought is expected to slash one percent from the A$940 billion (401 billion pound) economy.

The corridor, under discussion since the 1990s as the argument in support of climate change strengthened, will link national parks, state forests and government land. It will help preserve scores of endangered species.

“We are talking a very long-term vision, a land use that values keeping the eastern forests in place over past uses like landclearing,” said Graeme Worboys from the IUCN, the world conservation union.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology last year said climate change was occurring so fast in Australia that cooler southern towns were moving to the warmer north at the rate of 100 kilometres each year.

Lindenmayer, from the Australian National University, said governments would need also to work with private landholders to link the corridor through voluntary conservation agreements.

“Given only 10 percent of Australia’s landscapes are going to be in formal reserves, we are going to have to be far cleverer about how we manage the country outside,” he said.

But Michael Dunlop, from the country’s top government science organisation, the CSIRO, said the corridor would not be a silver bullet for conservation efforts, with the country needing to do more to protect different types of climates.

“Connectivity is just one solution. Connectivity is not one of my six big hits,” he said.

© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

 

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Walking Jim Stolz at Rangeley School.

 

Walkin’ Jim sure does

By Bobbie Hanstein • Apr 17th, 2009 • Category: Features

RANGELEY – After 27,000 miles of hiking the wilds of North America in 35 years, Jim Stoltz, 55, has earned his title.

During a folksy performance of photographs, song and stories this morning, Stoltz of Helena, Montana, told the students at Rangeley Lakes Regional School he’s been called Walkin’ Jim after he completed the 2,175-mile Georgia to Maine Appalachian Trail in 1974 as a 20-year-old and then in 1975 starting walking coast to coast, from West Quoddy Head, Maine to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. That 5,000-mile trek took him a year and half, and he’s been walkin’ ever since.


Walkin’ Jim Stoltz

“When I reached Mt. Katahdin, (AT’s northern terminus in Maine), I felt like I could do anything. I had once cent in my pocket. It was all I had; my worldly wealth,” he said grinning and added, “I’ve always said I have a rich man’s life without the money.”

He walks the long treks every year, from Mexico to Canada, Yellowstone to the Yukon, the Pacific Crest Trail and Alaska’s northern arctic refuge.

After thousands of miles of traveling the wild backcountry, Stoltz has lots of stories, songs he’s written from the trail and photos.

“Just trying to share the beauty of this planet,” he told his audience. His performance at the Rangeley school is one of 20 schools he’s visited since February that are along the AT and is sponsored by the local Appalachian Trail Conferences and the outdoor retailer REI.

“I sometimes go weeks alone without seeing another person. It’s time alone with nature,” he said. Nature, in the form of grizzlies, mountain lions, raging rivers and unexpected blizzards that he’s met along the trail, can be challenging but provide lots of good stories and songs.

He sings, encouraging the students to join in: “Habitat, habitat. Have to have a habitat! (haba haba) You have to have a habitat to carry on!”

“Have respect for life. Not only for us, but for everyone else,” he said closing with, “Happy trails!”


Walkin’ Jim Stoltz shares a story from the trail with Rangeley Lakes Regional School students, from left: Dagmar Wetherill, Alyssa Ferguson and hidden at right, Teryn Austin. To visit Stoltz’s web site go to: www.walkinjim.com

Stoltz will be performing his show general audiences “Forever Wild” at the Belgrade Community Center for All Seasons, in Belgrade, on April 22 at 7 p.m. Celebrate Earth Day and Support the Kennebec Highlands Phase III Campaign. The Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance is hosting the event. $10 tickets available by calling Mary at BRCA 207-495-6039 or e-mailing brca@gwi.net. For more info visit: www.belgradelakes.org

Lloyd Griscom appreciated Jim’s mention of “the freedom of the pack” and also his statement that “people really have no idea how many choices they have in life”.