Biodiversity Hotspot: The Florida Panhandle

摘要

Conservation in the Florida Panhandle, one of the richest biodiversity hotspots in North America, improves through major restoration efforts and new partnerships.nnThe reported recent sightings of the ivory-billed woodpecker in the Florida Panhandle spotlighted not only the reputedly extinct bird but also the rich biodiversity of the Choctawhatchee River. The focus on the Florida Panhandle, one of two locales (the Big Woods area of Arkansas is the other) being searched for the ivory-billed woodpecker, has underscored the environmental context for species survival. As a free-flowing river through protected, successional forests, the Choctawhatchee River figures large in the possible survival of this iconic North American bird.nnThe Florida Panhandle, considered one of the five richest biodiversity hotspots in North America, has been the center of regional and national attention for reasons other than the ivory-bill. Prominent developments in the panhandle include the ongoing disagreement between Georgia, Alabama, and Florida over diversion of waters in the Apalachicola–Chattahoochee–Flint River system, which affects the biodiversity and commercial fisheries of Apalachicola Bay; the establishment of the Northwest Florida Greenway, a protected corridor through the panhandle; the recent identification of a second species of the rare flatwoods salamander; and the ground-breaking for the E. O. Wilson Biophilia Center, expected to open in the fall of 2009. These join the ongoing recovery efforts in the panhandle for species such as the red-cockaded woodpecker and the Okaloosa darter at Eglin Air Force Base, in the western panhandle, and substantial longleaf pine–wiregrass restoration, which makes use of refined fire applications.nnDeborah Keller, senior policy representative at the Nature Conservancy (TNC), clarifies why the panhandle is a biodiversity hotspot:“Its rivers run clean; its coastal estuaries and forests are productive. It has changed more slowly than peninsular Florida, so species and natural ecosystems have survived.” Although political choices and economic development pose pressing challenges for the area, the Florida Panhandle is a biological wonder that presents scientific, public policy, and educational questions.