The Natural Lands of North America
The few remaining ISLANDS OF WILDNESS are the last pieces of life's wild fabric, and represent the original pre human landscapes that actually produced the ways of living we know today. They are the only viable threads linking the old natural world that created us to this new, largely synthetic age. They also contain the entire source of genetic material capable of sustaining us into the future.
In the five centuries which have elapsed since the systematic European conquest of North America's native environments began, the proportion of wild to domestic land has been reduced from nearly 100% to less than 3%. If the natural lands, and we along with them, are to survive the next 500 years we will need to reconnect the remaining ISLANDS OF WILDNESS, such as parks and wildlife refuges, with corridors or BIODUCTS along highways, power lines, railroads and streams. To maintain viability the isolated islands of plant and animal communities must again be linked through biological avenues so that genetic exchange and speciation - the development of new species - can continue. Gradually the corridors can be widened and sufficient integral habitat developed to restore the environmental health of whole regions.
The natural provinces of North America, the BIOMES or great native homes, reveal the diverse character of the continent as a whole. From the tropics of Mexico to the tundras of Alaska, these are the types of landscapes that we as one people can recognize as being "like home". Nature does not ordinarily draw sharp lines the way we do on maps, but tends to be more diffuse, sending emissaries to all available places. It is my hope that you will see here the continuity of life and understand how one region blends into another and perhaps most importantly, how your own home fits within the larger landscape of life. Out of this may grow a loving awareness that we and the Earth are One.
***
North America hosts thirteen of the fourteen terrestrial world biomes or global habitats.
Tropical Savannas are absent in North America.
************************************************************************
All Photographs And Text Copyright (C) 1996 Jim Bones (Unless Otherwise Indicated) Box 101, Tesuque, N.M. 87574 (505-955-0956)
"Light Writings" http://www.seedballs.com
* (Back) - (Page -
-
2 of 5) - (Exit) *