[APWG] FIRE 07 Climate change--first preserve the BEST 20-40 acres/7.5 min. quad.

[Craig Dremann]

Dear Bob and All,

Thanks for your email.  

One step before Congress funds an adequate annual budget for our Federal
land managers to take care of the Great Basin fires by convert the
cheatgrass areas back to local native species---is the protection of the
local native seed sources themselves.

The BLM, USFS, FWS and military bases, should be surveying their lands
in the West, and for every 7.5 minute map, put a fence around the "BEST
20-40 acres" that they can find, and permanently dedicate the area as an
ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION PRESERVE.  

Those native plant resources are too valuable to end up as sheep or
cow-chow, as the BLM's SOS or "Seeds of Success" program is probably
finding out, when they have seed collectors try and find native seeds to
collect in the Great Basin for example. 

By protecting the best native areas as an "Ecological Restoration
Preserve" within every 7.5 min. quad., those preserves could be future
local seed sources, and also provide an ecosystem model to work from,
when trying to restore other parts of the quad.

And the FWS, BLM and USFS Ecological Restoration preserves should be put
on all the public maps, including the AAA maps.  I have photos of some
of California's "BEST 20-40 acres" at  http://www.ecoseeds.com/wild.html 

You can usually spot the "Best 20-40 acres" from miles away, because
they are the very last areas within that 7.5 min. quad. that still have
a lot of wildflowers.  

I'm really concerned when I look at our country nation-wide, on a
website like the Confluence Project, an example at 
http://www.confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=37&lon=-110 (there should
be grasses and solid wildflowers in between those shrubs) and see how
botanically wasted our country has been allowed to get---or as the
botanists say, "depauperate."

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann, Redwood City, CA (650) 325-7333