# Collecting amphibians prior to deforestation.



## Jason (Oct 14, 2004)

After reading a few posts it dawned on me. I live here in MN and there is a company that collects native plants from areas that will be destroyed by development. Here is their website.

http://www.woodsendrescue.com/

I think this would be a great solution to the lack of new bloodlines in the hobby. If a company would work with the countries of origin, say for example Colombia. They could go in prior to the area being destroyed and remove what they can as far as plants and animals. These areas would have to be government approved areas where the proper permit is obtained to clear (if that is happening).

Don't get me wrong. I am not one for deforestation, but in our developing global economy it is happening. Slash and burn techniques are a loose-loose for everyone. If plants and animals are dying as fast as the forest is, it would only benefit everyone if they were used to establish bloodlines in our hobby as well as others.


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## markpulawski (Nov 19, 2004)

Problem is most of these areas are cleared by locals for pasture/farmland, no one is notified that it is going to be done. A good idea but completely impractical in this case.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

snip "Don't get me wrong. I am not one for deforestation, but in our developing global economy it is happening. Slash and burn techniques are a loose-loose for everyone. If plants and animals are dying as fast as the forest is, it would only benefit everyone if they were used to establish bloodlines in our hobby as well as others."endsnip

Actually if this practice was maintained at historic levels it actually works well in the enviroment. The problem is that the population is in excess of the enviroment's ability to recover once the soil is depleted and the people move on... 

Unless this practice is heavily scrutinized it typically is simply used as a method to launder animals from non-threatened areas.

Ed


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## Frogsarethashit (Jan 14, 2007)

Other than people like us on these forums, no one else cares.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

I don't think that is entirely the case. The problem is that there really isn't any way for the average member of the public to get involved. 

Ed


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

This is another area that TWI has its eye on. Marcos has done some preliminary work on the possibility of salvage harvesting. The idea would be that when forest concessions are granted, frogs and other specimens could be extracted and the proceeds would be used to mitigate the forest loss (by reforesting other areas or protecting other areas vulnerable to loss). It is a fledgling idea and TWI will need to grow and have more resources available than it currently has to make it work. But these are some of the creative ideas we hope to branch into over the coming years.

Also, I agree with Ed. I would not be too quick to condemn all slash and burn agriculture. It is a centuries old sustainable practice they may even contribute to the diversity of dendrobatids. But it is all a matter of frequency and scale that separates sustainable from unsustainable.


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## Frogsarethashit (Jan 14, 2007)

There is no way that the practice they employ today of slashing and burning is a centuries old method, _at least not in respect to the shear amount they cut down today_. There were no rain forest shortages in the past. It is a result of the increasing human population. Sony should donate a million PS3's to Africa to give them something to do over there, that would decrease the population explosion, and perhaps aids. Haha im just goofin'.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Frogsarethashit said:


> There is no way that the practice they employ today of slashing and burning is a centuries old method, _at least not in respect to the shear amount they cut down today_. There were no rain forest shortages in the past. It is a result of the increasing human population. Sony should donate a million PS3's to Africa to give them something to do over there, that would decrease the population explosion, and perhaps aids. Haha im just goofin'.


Like I said, it is a matter of frequency and scale that determines whether it is sustainable. Clearing several acres of land to grow crops for several years to a decade before abandoning the fields and moving on has been practiced for a long time. Broad scale clearing of forests in Central and South America is nothing new either. The evidence is strong that the Maya deforested huge areas and a prominent tropical soil scientist once told me that it appears that all of Central America has been deforested within the past 2000 years. 

I'm not suggesting there aren't huge problems with deforestation in the world, including the tropics. Clearly there are enormous problems with unsustainable harvest but to just say we are "against slash and burn" is not something I can agree with. And if you want to look at unethical deforestation practices, you need look no further than British Columbia.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

The USA has also deforested major portions of the continent in its history. If I remember correctly around 1900 only 10% of West Virginia was forested... It pretty has been the same for most of the other states in that region.... 

Ed


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Ed said:


> The USA has also deforested major portions of the continent in its history. If I remember correctly around 1900 only 10% of West Virginia was forested... It pretty has been the same for most of the other states in that region....
> 
> Ed


Not just forests either. Over 99% of the once vast tallgrass prairie has been plowed under. The only remaining contiguous pieces more than a few hundred acres in size is in the Flint Hills of Kansas and Oklahoma where shallow rock and steep terrain protected it from the plow. But even in those areas, the deep soiled bottomlands which once supported bluestem twice the height of a man have all gone to row crops. So our policies of sustainable extraction only came after uncontrolled and unsustainable harvest had reduced our natural resources to vestiges of their "natural" state. Were it not for the Multiple Use and Sustainable Yield Act mandating sustainability of natural resources on public lands, we would likely still be over harvesting our National Forests as was happening as recently as the early 1990's. And if certain politicians had their way, we would return to the "glory days" of "use it or lose it". But make no mistake. The only reason lumber is still affordable in the US is because Canada is logging BC like there is no end.


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## edwardsatc (Feb 17, 2004)

bbrock said:


> Like I said, it is a matter of frequency and scale that determines whether it is sustainable. Clearing several acres of land to grow crops for several years to a decade before abandoning the fields and moving on has been practiced for a long time.


Better known as Swidden agriculture. These traditional small scale (less than three acres), short term (3-5 yrs) plots that are usually comprised of mixed crops with high plant diversity and are easily reclaimed by the surrounding forest. As Brent said, this is a long established practice that has been very successful with very limited impact on the land.

Large scale slash and burn, on the other hand, usually involves monoculture for long periods of time, involving large tracts of land. These practices usually end in land that is severely eroded, nutrient depleted and unable to be reclaimed by the forest. It also leads to reduced diversity, increases in invasive species, and extirpation of species that cannot cope with forests that consist of large marginal zones and small interiors.

As has already been stated, it is very hard to convince others that they must conserve their forests when we ourselves have deforested the vast majority of our land. Compare pre European settlement forests to present day forests in the US - such as the maps of remaining old growth timber found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Oldgrowth3.jpg 
Like it or not, our history makes us bad examples in the eyes of others.


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## Frogsarethashit (Jan 14, 2007)

I find it hard to believe that the Maya could even come close to deforesting half as much as we deforest today.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Frogsarethashit said:


> I find it hard to believe that the Maya could even come close to deforesting half as much as we deforest today.


No doubt we are doing it at a much faster rate but we have only been at it like this for a few decades to less than a century in most places. The Maya had centuries to deforest their landscape but the end result was still miles upon miles of denuded forest and ecosystem collapse. You may want to read Jared Diamond's recent book, "Collapse".


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## Frogsarethashit (Jan 14, 2007)

I only read interesting things. But based on a few programs I have seen on Discovery and Civilization about deforestation, humans today probably take down more trees in a 5 or so year span than the Mayas ever did in their entire existence. But I don't have a pHD or anything so this is just my opinion.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Frogsarethashit said:


> I only read interesting things. But based on a few programs I have seen on Discovery and Civilization about deforestation, humans today probably take down more trees in a 5 or so year span than the Mayas ever did in their entire existence. But I don't have a pHD or anything so this is just my opinion.


Diamond's book is incredibly interesting so you should read it. All I can tell you is that the best current evidence suggests that HUGE areas of what are now considered pristine tropical rainforest have been cut down in the past. I'm not trying to argue that current human activities are nothing to worry about because people have done this sort of thing before. And I'm also not trying to suggest that what the Maya and other ancient cultures did was a good idea. In fact, the current thinking is that widespread environmental destruction were the principle reasons for the collapse of these once great civilizations. Which makes what we are doing now even more insane because we have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past but we don't seem to be doing it. Diamond's book also has some interesting suggestions about why humans continue to destroy their environment even when they know it will have dire consequences.


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## Frogsarethashit (Jan 14, 2007)

Might not sound too bad. Ive always wondered why people continue to destroy the earth, and know they are destroying it, and know it will have consequences, yet they keep doing it? I say its just that they are too lazy and simply don't care.


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## Onagro (Jun 9, 2006)

The real reason they do it is money... It's sad that the clear-cutting is going on, but if halting an industry cost jobs for people, most governments would be against it. Strangely, I've heard some Colombian dart frogs are adapting to living in and around drug crops, auratus using trash to raise tadpoles, and pumilio living at hotels. 

I used to live in a quiet town surrounded by forest and and farmland. Now, developer paid the farmers to leave, cut down most of the forest, and built massive, million-dollar homes in their place. Not to mention the people moving in are extremely arrogant and intolerant of the wildlife.

Sometimes, what we humans do in the name of progress is just plain inconsiderate of the planet we live on.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Onagro said:


> Strangely, I've heard some Colombian dart frogs are adapting to living in and around drug crops, auratus using trash to raise tadpoles, and pumilio living at hotels.


I think this is more a case of humans creating the conditions that the frogs are adapted to rather than the frogs adapting to a new environment. Not unlike white-tailed deer in North America. Several species of dart frog appear to be adapted to disturbance environments which create forest edge. Humans are really, really, good at creating disturbance environments so species already adapted to disturbance tend to do quite well around humans. It's my understanding that the diversity of pdf within the interiors of pristine undisturbed forests is actually relatively low.


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## Onagro (Jun 9, 2006)

PDF is just a way of abbreviating Poison Dart Frog. Some of us use it in a hurry but it can confuse some people into thinking its an adobe file. 

Thanks, bbrock, I did not think of it like that. I wish I had that picture one of my friends took in Hawaii of the auratus in the beer bottle with its eggs.


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## *GREASER* (Apr 11, 2004)

Does anyone know how the frogs are doing that Rob Gagliardo collected with that team from the area he feared was going to be deciamted by chytrid?


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## markpulawski (Nov 19, 2004)

It's Ron Gagliardo and they have distributed hundreds of frogs from Panama to institutions across the US, some being bred successfully some not. I wish I could remember the name but they are breeding a certain tree frog that is as rare as anything out there, but as i don't know tree frogs it did not mean much to me, I do remember it was not in the RETF genus.


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