| The Magazine of the CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES |
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life on the edge In the Garden of Heavenly Flowers Yunnan province, I was told in Beijing, with a definite touch of pride, is the "Kingdom of Fauna and Flora." With two-thirds of China's bird species, half its mammals, two-fifths of its reptiles and fishes, and over 100,000 insect species, Yunnan deserves its moniker. It owes its abundance to the precipitous, inaccessible slopes. Four of the world's major rivers-the Ayeyarwaddy, the Mekong, the Yangtze, and the Nujiang-course through this land on their way from the Tibetan plateau to the sea. At one point, all four flow within 100 miles of each other. One day there will probably be an Ironman race across them all. But if the race includes swimming the intervening rivers, there may be a problem. They didn't erode their gorges being placid. And when we were there last July, during the monsoons, the rivers were especially angry. The torrents churned fast and brown, the water full of eroded soil. We were made all too aware of the erosion each time our caravan of cars came up against impassible landslides. But it is these landslides-along with the rather cautious attitude of the local minority peoples, who form a majority in this region-that make the region so unappealing to the human forces for change and so help preserve the natural habitat. To the natural obstacles have recently been added some legal ones. Commercial logging is now illegal throughout this region of northern Yunnan, and in the preserves themselves no logging of any kind is permitted, nor any grazing or hunting. And, if Professor Li Heng of the Kunming Institute of Botany and her colleagues have their way, there will soon be corridors between the preserves where the same laws will apply. Meanwhile, along California's coast, we may have an embarrassment of riches. Extrapolating from the observations of whaler and naturalist Charles Scammon, who spent a considerable time killing whales, like ducks in a fishpond, in Mexican lagoons, we can estimate that the 26,000 whales that currently migrate along the Pacific coast probably approximate the region's carrying capacity. In "The Gray Whale Returns," Peter Steinhart reviews the growing number of whales entering the bays and inlets of the West Coast and the sudden increase in gray whale corpses washing ashore, and ponders the animal's prospects. The last time there were this many whales off California, humans had a negligible impact on the ocean environment. Onshore, grizzly bears were around to help the birds eat the beached carcasses. Recent attempts to tow the bodies out to sea have only been marginally successful. Given the rapid rise in population over the last 30 years, the age distribution of the whales must be tilted toward youth, which means gray whales may soon become even more evident in our waters and on our beaches. Just beyond the reach of saltwater is one of the few significant wetland areas left in southwestern California. North of Huntington Beach is the 1,200-acre ecological preserve known as Bolsa Chica. As well-known California natural history author Allan A. Schoenherr tells us in "When Wetlands Are Not Enough," the wetland was in a sorry state back in 1973 when the oil reservoirs gave out and developers moved in. Various government agencies managed an end run and began a major marshland reconstruction project. But you know these environmentalists: give them a square foot and they'll demand the horizon. Such is certainly the case here. A wetland needs a hinterland which, at Bolsa Chica, is the surrounding bluffs-the perfect place for upscale homes. We're very pleased with our first Photographic Competition: many entries and a high standard. We're so pleased, in fact, that the Academy plans an exhibit of winners and near-winners to open January 20. Come and see. Keith K. Howell is Editor of California Wild. |