Endangered Species of the Southern US
A weekly column by Shawn Gaynor
Watch where you step: the endangered
Rock Gnome Lichen may be underfoot
Rock Gnome Lichen is found primarily on high mountaintops
in western North Carolina, and the surrounding mountain region, on bare
rock in areas adjacent to Spruce-fir forest.
According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), it is limited
to 32 populations. Only seven of the remaining 32 populations cover
an area larger than 2 square meters (2.4 square yards). Most are 1 meter
(3.3 feet) or less in size.
Lichens are actually made up of two organisms, fungus and algae, living
in a symbiotic (cooperative) relationship. They are the only form
of plant life capable of growing on bare rock, clinging tight to the
rocks and slowly dissolving them to feed off of the nutrients.
Eventually they create enough soil for other types of plant life like
mosses to move in, and therefore have an important role to play in the
cycle of life.
While the USFWS lists the Rock Gnomes primary threat as trampling, the
areas where the Rock Gnome lichen occur has some of the nation’s
worst air pollution. While extensive evidence on the effects of air
pollution on this species has not been assembled, some harmful effects
have been documented, and some populations that are in decline cannot
be attributed to physical disturbance. The species lives as part
of an ecosystem that is in drastic decline due to air pollution created
primarily by coal fired power plants and automobile use.
The Rock Gnome lichen is dependent on moisture, and is bathed by the
fog of the high Smokey Mountains. As fog has turned to smog in
these high elevation regions, air pollution has taken its toll on this
environment. While the lichen does not live in the critically declining
Spruce-fir forest, it is affected by the changes in moisture levels
that these disappearing forests regulate.
Issues of protection become complex in these cases. While habitat
protection helps, an overall improvement in air quality may be necessary
for the survival of the Rock Gnome lichen and the Spruce-fir forest
in general.
Bush, the rainforest and a gas
pipeline to enrich his friends
Plan would benefit Bush corporate
campaign contributors
By Andrew Gumbel
July 30— President George Bush is seeking funds for a controversial
project to drive gas pipelines from pristine rainforests in the Peruvian
Amazon to the coast.
The plan will enrich some of Bush’s closest corporate campaign
contributors while risking the destruction of rainforest, threatening
its indigenous peoples and endangering rare species on the coast.
Among the beneficiaries would be two Texas energy companies with close
ties to the White House, Hunt Oil and Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR),
a subsidiary of Vice-President Dick Cheney’s old company, Haliburton,
which is rebuilding Iraq’s oil infrastructure.
The pipeline slices through some of the most biologically diverse places
on earth. Their remoteness has preserved an extraordinarily rich ecosystem
in the coastal Paracas reserve, which is home to such rare species as
Humboldt penguins, sea lions and green sea turtles.
The Camisea natural gas project — with reserves of 13,000 billion
cubic feet of gas — has already scared off two big investors, Citigroup
and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. According to an internal
report by the US Export Import Bank, obtained by the lobby group Amazon
Watch, proposals to mitigate the environmental impact of the project
are “woefully inadequate” and will lead to mudslides, destroy
habitats, and spread diseases among indigenous peoples.
Friends of the Earth describes one threatened area as “one of the
world’s most pristine tropical rainforests,” home to the Nahua,
Kirineri, Nanti, Machiguenga and Yine indigenous groups. Past contact
between indigenous peoples and loggers has proven disastrous —
42 percent of the Nahua died from diseases contracted from outsiders
in the 1980s.
Already, the project, which is 60 percent complete, has run into difficulties,
including the kidnapping of 60 pipeline workers last week. They were
freed later by the Peruvian military.
Nevertheless, the Bush administration plans to approve financial support
for the project, possibly as early as this week, via both the US Export
Import Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The two institutions,
which are due to make their own final decisions in the next couple of
weeks, are expected to put up about $300 million in loans and guarantees,
which would in turn pave the way for financing the rest of the $1.6
billion project.
Ray Hunt, chairman of Hunt Oil, raised more than $100,000 for Bush in
2000. He and his wife recently gave the maximum personal contribution
to Bush’s re-election campaign.
Kellogg Brown & Root would not be involved in the pipeline but are
well placed to build a one-billion-dollar natural gas plant on the Peruvian
coast if it goes ahead. The ties linking KBR to Cheney have prompted
the same charges of favoritism that surrounded the choice of Haliburton
to oversee Iraq’s oil fields. The president of the Export Import
Bank, Philip Merrill, is a close associate of Cheney. And the chief
US representative at the IDB, Jose Fourquet, helped mobilize Hispanic
voter support in 2000.
The Camisea project has raised eyebrows in Washington as well as among
campaigners in the Amazon, not least because banks and governments usually
consider environmental impacts very carefully before approving such
ventures.
The US Agency for International Development is against the project and
several senior congressional leaders have urged the US Treasury to delay
a final decision until further reviews have taken place.
The Export Impact Bank’s report conceded that key decisions were
made for economic reasons, that massive erosion had already occurred
on the pipeline route and that unique biodiversity faced “significant,
long-term and largely irreversible” deterioration. Three lobby
groups — Amazon Watch, Amazon Alliance and Environmental Defense
— said last week that the project was causing food shortages and
disease in the Urubamba valley.
The Bush administration is reticent about its plans but is keen to exploit
new sources of energy to reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Its
ambition to open up the Alaskan reserve proved controversial, and has
so far been blocked by the US Congress.
Source: Independent (UK)
