Each year, NRDC identifies 12 BioGems, critically endangered wild places across the Americas, and mobilizes citizen action to save them. New on the BioGems list in 2003 are the Castle-Bighorn region of the Canadian Rockies, and the Usumacinta River in Mexico and Guatemala. Oil and gas drilling threaten the Castle-Bighorn's critical migration corridor for bears, wolves, cougars and other wildlife, while a series of dams the Mexican government plans to build along the Usumacinta, in the heart of the Maya Rainforest, could flood hundreds of miles of vital habitat, destroying archaeological sites and displacing as many as 50,000 people.
On the good news front, NRDC has removed two BioGems from the endangered list as a result of big wins: the Talamanca coast, where the Costa Rican government rejected offshore drilling proposals by U.S. companies, and the Channel Islands, where California officials created a network of protected marine reserves. The Channel Islands remain on the BioGems Watchlist, and we will work to expand the reserves into the area's federal waters.
NRDC has also removed two locations from our BioGems Watchlist. Thanks to thousands of emails from BioGems Defenders and discussions with NRDC and our partners, Texas-based Anadarko canceled plans to expand oil development that threatened the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala. And with the backing of BioGems defenders, local groups have fended off Wheaton River Mineral's plans to build a gold mine that would have leached cyanide and put Costa Rica's Gulf of Nicoya at risk.
BIOGEMS 2003: Araguaia River (Brazil); Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (U.S.); Castle-Bighorn (Canada); Greater Everglades (U.S.); Great North Woods (U.S.); Macal River Valley (Belize); Olivillo Coastal Forest (Chile); Redrock Wilderness (U.S.); Tahuamanú Rainforest (Peru); Tongass National Forest (U.S.); Usumacinta River (Mexico and Guatemala); Yellowstone/Greater Rockies (U.S.)
BIOGEMS WATCHLIST 2003: Baja California (Mexico); Cape Breton Island (Canada); Channel Islands (U.S.); Copper River (U.S.); Forest of the Rock (Canada); Great Bear Rainforest (Canada); Madidi National Park (Bolivia); Western Arctic (U.S.)
