🚀 go-pugleaf

Woody Ligon writes:

>It is high time we stopped calling tiny little clans "endanged species" and
>started admitting that they are only "sub-species".  

A better term would be "local populations" and there is nothing "only" about
them. Many species maintain a large fraction of their genetic diversity in
diversity *between* small populations. This kind of metapopulation structure
can be vulnerable to collapse if too many local populations are lost. Smaller
local populations are also apt to develop valuable local adaptations, and 
very small "founder" populations are the source of new species. In short,
local populations are of immense biological importance from the standpoint
of maintaining species. And they are also of importance for maintaining the
ecosystems of which they are members. *All* levels of biological diversity have
to be maintained to maintain *any* of them.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) recognizes the importance of local populations
and protects them where they are threatened or endangered. There was a move by 
outgoing Interior Secretary Manual Lujan to weaken the ESA so that it would 
only apply to full species endangered *everywhere*. ["Must we save every 
subspecies?"] This piece of biological imbecility is now thankfully dead on
arrival at the 103 Congress, which must reauthorize the ESA. The stranglehold
which the Dan Quayle Council on Competitiveness has had on the ESA also dies 
blessedly on Jan. 20 when that Council ceases to exist. Al Gore is quite 
interested in the administration of the ESA, but not quite in the manner Quayle 
was :-)

The great weakness of the ESA is that it only kicks in when things have 
slipped so far downhill that a crisis has been reached. It does not provide
a way to maintain healthy prospects for local populations, species, or for
ecosystems to maintain their future biological diversity. The reauthorized
ESA needs to be coupled with newly-proposed legislation to create a National
Institutes of Biological Diversity charged with identifying, studying, and
protecting biodiversity -- on *all* scales from within-population up to 
between-ecosystem -- within the US and in all parts of the Earth affected
by US policies. Under such legislation, Mt. Graham e.g. would probably have 
been directly protected as a rare ecosystem type (a Pleistocene Montagne 
ecosystem remnant) -- the reason biologists wanted to protect it -- with no 
legal squabbles over squirrels and Apache burials needed. 

Such legislation would be a major step towards bringing US policy in line
with biological sanity and true sustainability, placing the US back in a
leadership role in the struggle to stem the exponentiating deterioration 
of the biosphere. I urge everyone to write their representatives in support
of it. 

------------
Alan McGowen

"Models are tools for thinkers, not crutches for the thoughtless." -- Michael
Soule.