Climate change and mountain-top removal mining

Most of the publicationsor reports coming out with recommendations about climate change adaptationstrategies for ecosystem management emphasize the need to reducenon-climate-related stresses (i.e. anthropogenic stresses such as habitatdegradation or destruction, pollution, over-harvest, invasive introduction,etc). It makes perfect sense to think that ecosystems – just like our ownbodies – will respond better to change when the overall stress level is low. Lara Hansen and hercolleagues repeat this mantra in the latest guidance document to designclimate-smart conservation ( Conservation Biology 24:63-69 ). They tell us to protect adequate andappropriate space, reduce non-climate stresses, adopt adaptive management andreduce the rate of climate change.

On January 8th, themagazine Science published anarticle by Palmer and colleagues that describes Mountaintop Mining Consequences . It is a concisely written, fact-layingdescription of the situation in the central Appalachians.One of highest biodiversity sites in North America,these mountains and their streams are being destroyed and mine-related toxicpollutants are affecting plants, animals as well as humans living in the area.More importantly, mitigation efforts have been recognized as ineffective.Despite the obvious failure of existing policy and its enforcement, miningpermits continue to be issued despite well-published scientific evidence ofirreversible deleterious impacts.

How can we talk aboutdeveloping climate change strategies when we cannot even begin to addresscurrent threats to our environment and our people? How can we point the fingersat other countries when the United States continues to poison its landscape andits peoples? In the central Appalachians, climate refugia – such as deepvalleys where regional warming will be less due to cold, pooling air – can beidentified; corridors that allow species to move to more optimal conditions – arole the Appalachians played during past glaciations – can be delineated;forests that contribute strongly to local climatic conditions and are essentialfor the Atlantic Flyway should be protected; the most biologically diversefreshwater systems in North America (example here ) could bemonitored to deliver important clues on shifts in species assemblages as theclimate changes around these mountains; a whole suite of rare, endemic andthreatened cave species from Appalachian karst geology also need protection (see“ NotableKarst Areas of the United States ”).

So our choice ofplace is obvious but how effective are we at reducing anthropogenic stressessuch as mountain-top mining with valley fills? The impacts of future climate willbe moot when the mountains exist no more.