Water Education Foundation
This is just one post in the Environment & Water Category
Click here to view all posts

Mimicking Mother Nature: Humans just aren’t that good at it, says editorial

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 2, 2008 at 5:37 am

From the Los Angeles Times, this editorial:

The Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program, a $626-million joint project of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation and several Western states, is designed to offset the environmental impacts of drawing water from the Colorado River. Situated just a few miles north of where California, Arizona and Mexico meet, it looks a bit like a suburban construction site right now, though once completed it will re-create 8,132 acres of habitat: groves of cottonwood, willow and honey mesquite, ponds and marshes. Endangered birds such as the yellow-billed cuckoo and threatened fish such as the razorback sucker and the bonytail should thrive there.

Still, nature it’s not. Its orderly, vaguely kidney-shaped pools look more like the water hazards at a golf course than the random wetlands of wilderness. It will take a system of pipes to drain the ponds, biologists to oversee the species and a $25-million upkeep fund to tend to the project over the years.

There’s usually something a little pathetic about human attempts to mimic nature, or to restore it. Our attempts to save the coastal sage scrub of Southern California are another perennial reminder.

Read the rest of this editorial from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here .

April 2, 2008 · Filed Under Environment & Water

Comments

Leave a Reply