Making the case for biodiversity
By Jack Dumbacher
I have little doubt that as long as there are people to watch them, there will always be some birds to watch. But as birders, we understand that just seeing birds is not enough – we want diversity. It is not enough to have a life list of one species that you’ve seen really well. We want a long life list with many species. We want to count as many species as we can on each field trip. We want to see birds doing a variety of interesting things. We want reasons to visit a variety of habitats and regions. And we love seeing that occasional rare, out-of-place species.
This seems intuitive if you are used to diversity. After all, who wants to eat only potatoes for the rest of your life? Or only watch one television program? Or only enjoy art painted with one color? It is the diversity of sounds and colors and plants and animals and landscapes that provide spice to life. These are the ingredients that, when all mixed up and allowed to stand for a few million years, lead to incredible and beautiful evolutionary diversity.
But for people not used to these things, how do we make the case for diversity? My father spent much of his spare time in open green spaces. Sometimes I would go with him, and we heard birds and saw squirrels and geese, and we believed that we loved and understood nature. After spending many more years of my life studying biology, I realized that we were just golfers on a relatively impoverished golf course landscape.
Over the years I’ve learned that a forest is much more than a collection of green leaves and brown woody trunks. Green spaces are not all created equal, and just because an area is green does not mean that it can support the natural diversity of insects, other plants, or birds. Especially when there are fewer and smaller patches of natural open space, it is important that each patch provides excellent habitat for many plants and animals and that there is a diversity of these patch types.
Song Sparrow eating native Red Elderberry on Mt. Davidson. Photo by Eddie Bartley.
Pacific-slope Flycatcher searching for insects in Red Elderberry. Photo by Eddie Bartley
Surprisingly, though, the case for diversity is not always an easy one to make.
Over the past year, I’ve become aware that we are losing important conservation battles right here in the Bay Area to a vocal minority who love open space and green areas, and believe they are standing up for trees and nature.…