IAS Aroid Quasi Forum

About Aroid-L
 This is a continuously updated archive of the Aroid-L mailing list in a forum format - not an actual Forum. If you want to post, you will still need to register for the Aroid-L mailing list and send your postings by e-mail for moderation in the normal way.

  Re: [Aroid-l] Your Aroid Society Newsletter
From: Jason Hernandez <jason.hernandez74 at yahoo.com> on 2011.06.18 at 01:21:22(22117)
I, too, enjoyed the newsletter. However, in Tom Croat's narrative of his expedition to the Guianas, I couldn't help but notice how often he referred to a place that was remote but is now connected by road to developed areas, or that was wild but is now being developed. In the short term, this makes for convenience in collecting new plants; but it is part of the long-term habitat loss that makes plants (and everything else) rare. In this IAS newsletter we see in microcosm the global environmental crisis.

Haven't we all noticed this? Can we not all think of some of our favorite nature places, now disappeared under pavement, lawns, or industry? Can we not all think of some plant or animal we used to see a lot of in our younger days, that has now become a special, memorable sighting in the "islands" of preserved nature? I certainly can. And when I read the nature narratives of the past, even 40 or 50 years ago, I find it hard to believe there could ever have been such abundance.

As plant lovers, we are surely concerned about all this. We can grow our prized specimens, and that is good; but if they come to exist only in cultivated collections, apart from their ecological connections to the world, they, and we, are diminished.

Jason Hernandez

HTML

+More

Note: this is a very old post, so no reply function is available.