NW Coniferous Enviroment
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REDwOOD Forests of the Pacific Northwest
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Redwood forests enclose a tremendous diversity of animals including: the northern spotted owl, the marbled murrelet, elks, bears, and various warblers. Sadly, the redwood forest that once was a beautiful forest with an abundant ecosystem, with much biodiversity, is long gone due to logging and forest fires. What remains now is but only 4% of the amount of redwood groves there once were. The redwoods once covered over two million acres of land that extended from the southern California coast to the bottom of Oregon. After the discovery of gold, extensive logging began to satisfy the lumber demands and left only 450 miles of the trees along the coast of CA. The redwoods near the Redwood Creek in the Redwood National Park of California may be the only lasting mass of redwoods. Logging has
done serious damage to forests causing them to be
extremely patchy and also fragmentation makes it
difficult for ecosystems to thrive. The National
Park may be the only hope for the survival of a
redwood forest with a properly functioning
ecosystem, but maybe not due to its small size and
human tourism.
The forests are majorly threatened by the logging
industries and urbanization. The industries cause
flooding and forest fires that may kill off many trees and affect the animals that live in the
region. In fact it has already caused many species that live there to become either threatened, or
worse, endangered. In addition most of the remaining groves that lie on private lands have been threatened to be cut by lumber companies.The effect of human activities is causing damage to our environments, which result in the harming of ourselves. If trees are gone then what will we breathe? Our world is not something to be taken granted for and must be cared for genuinely. The national parks and government are
still making great efforts to create a compromise between them and the loggers. These trees and
animals must be protected before they become extinct and are a loss of biodiversity.
~Jessica Wang
myMagazine/January, 2012