Fighting Fragmentation: Making the Case for Ecosystem Connectivity

This heartbreaking visual is all too common for the wildlife that live in our fragmented world. Yet you probably don't think about it until you see a dead animal on the road.

In my experience that roadkill you see is merely the most visible expression of a cultural phenomenon. More than half the earth is developed, causing widespread fragmentation and disruption of the natural processes that sustain life on the planet.

• Forests: The international agriculture firm, Cargill, announced last week that corporations will fall short of halting deforestation by 2020. We’re losing 18.7 million acres of forests annually, equivalent to 27 soccer fields every minute--requiring 86% of the world's land-based species to get by on less and less. Not even our public lands and national parks are safe from such destruction. From Virunga National Park to Point Reyes National Seashore, we are proving that our desire to extract and despoil in the name of profit knows no limits.

• Wetlands: Globally, we are filling in our wetlands at 3x the rate of deforestation, pushing many amphibians to the brink of extinction and destroying what remains of our migratory waterfowl and shorebird habitat. There is no place this is more evident that California, where we have lost over 95% of our wetlands to agriculture. Over the last few years, my brilliant team at Resource Renewal Institute (RRI) has been working with communities to reverse this ecological disaster.

• Rivers and Streams: While conducting research in Morocco I found a country reliant on aquaculture for fish protein because they had dammed all their water bodies and let tanneries dump dangerous quantities of cancer-causing chromium, sulfurs, and oil into their rivers and streams--breaking up fish migration patterns and poisoning the fish that remained. In Vietnam, the farmers, fisherfolk, and community members in the Lower Mekong River Delta shared hardships they have experienced with decreasing flows of water and nutrient-rich sediments, lack of fish and other aquatic life, and saline intrusion. Why? The built (or planned) 11 mainstream dams and 120 tributary dams on the Mekong River in China and Laos.

I don't mean to discourage. I merely aim to shed some light on the gravity of our method of systematic fragmentation of the natural world, and the inequities that this pursuit bears.

I am an advocate for greater ecosystem connectivity and wildlife mobility through and through. These dynamic and interconnected landscapes and seascapes are part of our cultural and ecological identity. When we think about climate resiliency at a landscape level I firmly believe that our 20th-century solutions no longer suffice. We need to get creative and we need to get everybody to the table.

P.S. I know it is possible. Great work is being done all around the world, from Patagonia to Montana:

*Large-scale example*: The Greater Yellowstone Coalition has been collaborating with private, public, and tribal landowners to effectively increase the range of migratory bison by more than 250,000 acres (with an eventual goal of 400,000 acres) via land acquisitons, grazing allotment buyouts and land leases. Source: http://bit.ly/2Xb0GUX

*Small-scale example*: A new wildlife overpass near Pinedale, WY has reduced wildlife-vehicle collisions by an incredible 85%. Source:http://bit.ly/2X7g1G1

Why Our Bans on Single Use Plastics Matter

This right here. This is why our bans on single-use plastics matter. This is why we need to focus on the "reduce" and "reuse" above all else--even recycling and the supposed "composting" of bio-plastics.

As we fight to ban single-use plastics and promote reusables in cities and towns across America, petrol companies plan to build or expand 264 petrochemical plants and increase U.S. plastics production by 33%.

Petrol companies see the writing on the wall. The internal combustion engine is on its last leg. In the next decade, the majority of vehicles on the road in developed nations will be hybrid or plug-in electric vehicles. How do petrol companies intend to keep the demand for oil high? To quote the film The Graduate:

"Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics."

That's right, everything from your paper plates and cups to your soda cans (inside and outside) are coated in films of plastic.

Oil and gas wells (on OUR public lands and off OUR coastlines) produce the chemicals needed to produce 99% of these plastics. And if the drilling and mining impacts on wildlife, water, and frontline communities weren't destructive enough, our failure to reduce single-use consumption has resulted in the transport of our waste around the world, to developing nations where our waste (even the contaminated plastic we put in our recycling bin) is piled up and burned. If these plastics don't end up polluting the air, then they break-up over into microplastics over hundreds and thousands of years and end up in our drinking water, our food, and our even our rain.

End this senseless cycle. Be a part of the solution. Feel free to reach out to me if you want to strategize on how to move your community (big or small), your business, or your household to be #zerowaste. <3