Subject: Re: Biodiversity (fwd)

From: Victor Guest <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 09 May 1998 14:30:21 WST

Errors-To: [email-masked]
My Sons

I'm not sending this to depress or frighten you. But it may explain why I am
where I am. In the late 1980's I felt called to the land to do some kind of
agriculture. That was so off the wall from where I was at the time, I
listened to it. This place here is the result.

As things have worked out, we are fostering incredible increases in
biodiversity right here on this tiny, tiny piece of ground. More species in
the meadows, more birds of differing species coming each year, more insects,
more worms and other microorganisms. In fact, this year, my compost pile is
virtually indistinguishable from my worm box -- hundreds of worms of all
ages in every bucket full. We've always had wild frult trees -- especially
plums. 

The creek has been making big changes down below. The main channel is
blocked this year by a debris dam. The west channel is now the main channel.
Land is created and land is taken away every Spring. It is an amazing and
scary process to watch. This year, we may lose a couple of more big pine
trees to the creek. I'm trying to keep calm about this. 

Bless you, my dear family. I love you so very much and I'm so very proud of
the way you are creating your families and beginning to build your lives the
way you want them -- in ways that will nourish and feed you so you in turn
can feed others around you.  

Love, Mom

>Here is a clipping of interest from the Alternative Agriculture News - May
>1998.
>
>
>SCIENTISTS BELIEVE EARTH IS IN MIDST OF MASS BIOLOGICAL
>EXTINCTION
>     Seven out of ten biologists believe that "we are in the
>midst of a mass extinction of living things, and that this loss
>of species will pose a major threat to human existence in the
>next century," according to a nationwide survey by the American
>Museum of Natural History in New York City, conducted by Louis
>Harris and Associates.  The survey interviewed 400 experts in the
>biological sciences who are members of the American Institute of
>Biological Sciences.  According to the scientists' estimates,
>this mass extinction is the fastest in the earth's history. 
>Unlike prior extinctions, this "sixth extinction" is mainly the
>result of human activity, and not natural phenomena.
>     According to the survey, scientists identified the key
>causes of this extinction as the increasing human population and
>the rate at which humans consume resources.  They said those
>problems cause a loss of biodiversity through habitat destruction
>and degradation, overexploitation of plant and animal species,
>introduction of non-native species into habitats, pollution and
>contamination, and global warming.  In the survey, scientists
>identified the maintenance of biodiversity as critical to human
>well-being, and rated biodiversity loss as a more serious
>environmental problem than the depletion of the ozone layer,
>global warming, or pollution and contamination.   
>
>
>- Larry Johnson
>  Minneapolis, MN
>
>