In brief
Temperate Forests Mapping
In January of 1991, WILD staff person Robin Sydneysmith completed a set of maps of the world's temperate rainforests and a 30 page report about North America's temperate forests.
The largest areas of ancient temperate rainforests are found in southern Chile and the central British Columbia coast. Both areas, however, are discontinuous in their forest cover, the forested regions broken up by steep-sloped ocean inlets, alpine meadows, rock and snow. Both areas are also threatened by active and proposed logging on a massive scale.
This project was funded by SOL 3 of Switzerland and by the Cundill Foundation of Vancouver.
African Regional Conference
Ian Sinclair of the Zambezi Society returned home to Zimbabwe from the June/90 WILD conference in Hawaii committed to organizing an African Regional Mapping Conference. Although he had received the support of the Zambezi Society and tentatively set a date for May 1991, WILD was unable to raise sufficient funds to co-host both the Latin America and Africa Regional Conferences simultaneously.
The African conference, delayed until funding can be secured, will benefit from the experience of the Latin American "pilot" regional conference and from the extra time which can be used to expand the network of groups and individuals with expertise related to Africa's natural ecosystems.
Kemano II and James Bay II Hydro Megaprojects
In November of 1990, WILD co-published with the Steelhead Society of BC a newspaper calling for a halt to two major hydro projects which threaten Canadian wild rivers. The James Bay II project is the largest hydroelectric project in the world, necessitating the diversion and impoundment of 20 major rivers, the combined reservoirs of which would own forests and critical wildlife habitat in an area of Quebec equivalent to the size of France.
The Kemano II project in BC is much smaller but, if it is allowed to go ahead, the negative impact on the mighty Fraser river's salmon runs would be very costly.
Funding for this campaign is being generated by the sale of a donated "Inukshuk" (mysterious Inuit stone cairn) painting by Ken Kirbyadn by the ongoing sale of art-cards and a poster which WILD published of the Inukshuk painting. An exciting spin-off of this campaign is the contact made with native peoples who are keen on cooperating with WILD in the generation of maps of Canada from an indigenous perspective.
USSR Boreal Forest
Rein Ahas and Teet Jagomagi, working under contract to WILD, have been collecting maps of the biogeography, natural ecosystems and protected areas of the USSR. These delegates to the Hawaii WILD conference are also undertaking the job of doing more detailed mapping of eco-geography in their home country, Estonia.
In a recent letter to WILD, Rein noted the progress they were making. However, local forest cover maps needed to ascertain the extent of the boreal forest were "...closed to (in) steel lockers in Russia."
