EKOS Communications, Inc.

From Micro to Macro, biodiversity on this planet is threatened. A visit with a seed farmer and a ride through an alpine pass inspired thoughts on genetics and ecology. Whether you call it Westernization or Progress, our experience of the natural world is becoming flatter - everything looks the same!

We just returned to the coast from a brief detour into central Oregon. We rode from sea level tidepools through rainforest, across the Cascade Mountains and down into desert ranchland. I was amazed by the phenomenal diversity of ecosystems we traveled through. Draw a transect from east to west, or from north to south through this continent – this land supports a mind-blowing array of flora and fauna in beautiful, complex ecosystems.

This bicycle trip is taking us from temperate rainforest in the Pacific Northwest to the Baja desert, and everything in between. Riding through the Cascades we bisected the Pacific Crest Trail, which links Mexico to Canada, roughly paralleling our journey. According to the trail brochures, through-hikers experience six of the seven North American ecozones. Constructing and maintaining this trail has not been easy, though. Ribbons of highway criss-cross the western states; every square mile is parceled into pre-approved land-use zones. The roads we ride on provide access to the fantastic areas we visit, but they are deadly to wildlife. Roads and development isolate formerly contiguous populations and cause habitat loss and roadkill. Canada is similarly guilty in this – the Trans Canada Highway runs right through Banff National Park.

Many Canadians are aware of the Yellowstone to Yukon (Y2Y) initiative, an effort to recreate a huge uninterrupted corridor for animal migration. Similarly, the Pacific Crest Trail Organization strives to raise awareness and support for the same cause. Like the Y2Y they work with all interested parties – landowners, resource developers, and wilderness advocates, creating a diverse community of stakeholders and encouraging everyone to become active stewards of the land.

Species go extinct every day, many of them unknown to science. Much of the extinction is incidental, a secondary effect of other human activities. But some is on purpose too. Modern agriculture is a process of genetic reduction. Scientists and crop developers breed and engineer cultivars for specific environmental and market conditions, while older, varieties are deemed obsolete and destroyed, their unique gene patterns lost forever. We stopped along the way in Corvallis, Oregon and visited with a vibrant, diverse group of people – people working to live a vision of environmental, social, and spiritual sustainability. Among these is Phil Gouy, a chef, homebuilder, and seed farmer. Phil is working to counteract the reductionist trend in agriculture. He grows crops not so much for their produce as for the seeds, and is building a bank of seeds that corporations such as Monsanto have no interest in. By keeping these heritage species alive, Phil is ensuring that we will have tasty, unique salads today and in the future.

Loss of genetic material can have catastrophic consequences. Within a species, the ability to respond to natural events, such as climate change, is compromised. In a community of species delicate food web balances and intraspecific relationships are upset. And recovery is questionable – biodiversity is nature’s insurance system. Whether it is populations of large mammals suddenly isolated or cookie-cutter tomatoes cloned from the same parent, decreased genetic variation spells trouble.