Each year, NRDC identifies 12 BioGems and orchestrates a public action campaign to save them. In the face of ongoing threats, several wild places identified in 2001 as critically important and under threat remain on our BioGems list for 2002. We have also added new BioGems, including Chile's Olivillo Coastal Forest, which was on our watchlist for 2001, and two sites in the Amazon.
Three 2001 BioGems have moved to our watchlist: the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, where we must ensure that a landmark preservation agreement is honored, as well as Costa Rica's Gulf of Nicoya and Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve. And an update on 2001 watchlist locations: BioGems Defenders helped persuade the Brazilian government to shut down an illegal road through Iguacu Falls National Park; and local fishing communities and Cargill, Inc. have reached a stalemate over the disposal of brine wastes in Venezuela's Los Olivitos Marsh.
BIOGEMS 2002: Araguaia River (Brazil); Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (U.S.); Channel Islands (U.S.); Greater Everglades (U.S.); Great North Woods (U.S.); Macal River Valley (Belize); Olivillo Coastal Forest (Chile); Redrock Wilderness (U.S.); Tahuamanú Rainforest (Peru); Talamanca (Costa Rica); Tongass National Forest (U.S.); Yellowstone/Greater Rockies (U.S.)
BIOGEMS WATCHLIST 2002: Great Bear Rainforest (Canada); Cape Breton Island (Canada); Forest of the Rock (Canada); National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (U.S.); Baja California (Mexico); Maya Biosphere Reserve (Guatemala); Gulf of Nicoya (Costa Rica); Madidi National Park (Bolivia)
