Fwd: We live in a special place
- To: m*@ucdavis.edu
- Subject: Fwd: We live in a special place
- From: N* S*
- Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 19:40:06 -0800
This interesting post comes from the California Native Plant listserv:
Nan
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>
>Did you all see last week's issue of the journal Nature?
>
>24 Feb. 2000, Vol. 403, pp. 853-858: "Biodiversity hotspots for conservation
>priorities," by Norman Myers et. al.
>
>Abstract: Convervationists are far from able to assist all species under
>threat, if only for lack of funding. This places a premium on priorities:
>how can we support the most species at the least cost? One way is to
>identify "biodiversity hotspots" where exceptional concentrations of endemic
>species are undergoing exceptional loss of habitat. As many as 44% of all
>species of vascular plants and 35% of all species in four vertebrate groups
>are confined to 25 hotspots comprising only 1.4% of the land surface of the
>Earth. This opens the way for a "silver bullet" strategy on the part of
>conservation planners, focusing on these hotspots in proportion to their
>share of the world's species at risk.
>
>The California Floristic Province is identified in the article as the
>eighth most threatened region in the world. It is the most threatened area
>in the United States. It is interesting to note that ALL of the world's
>Mediterranean-climate regions are identified as hotspots. This makes
>sense, since the Mediterranean climate zones are small and widely-separated,
>contributing to biogeogrpahical isolation and endemism; and, just as im-
>portantly, humans find them very agreeable places to live.
>
>
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Nan Sterman
San Diego County California
Sunset zone 24, USDA hardiness zone 10b or 11
