Every year, NRDC names 12 BioGems -- unspoiled wildlands in the Americas threatened by development -- and mobilizes citizens to take direct action to protect them. In 2005, we named two new BioGems to protect marine mammals and the pristine ocean habitats they depend on. In Mexico's Upper Gulf of California, overfishing threatens to exterminate the world's smallest porpoise, the vaquita marina. On Chile's Patagonia Coast, toxic pollution and ship traffic from a proposed aluminum smelter could endanger a blue whale nursery.
NRDC removed Belize's Macal River Valley from our BioGems list, after an exhaustive three-year battle was unable to stop a Canadian company from moving forward with a dam project there. We shifted Chile's Olivillo Coastal Forest from the BioGems list to the watchlist, after BioGems Defenders and other activists helped raise awareness in Chile of the threat of a proposed coastal highway; and we will continue to monitor this area to ensure the Chilean government fulfills its promise to protect the forest.
Due to encouraging developments on various fronts, we removed several sites from our watchlist: Since BioGems Defenders helped discourage investment in a proposed dam along the Usumacinta River in Mexico, new support for the project has failed to materialize. Pressure from BioGems Defenders and other citizen activists also helped push back a plan to build 27 marinas in sensitive habitat areas in Baja California, Mexico, and helped secure state protection for the nearshore reserves in California's Channel Islands. And in Canada, a round of seismic tests in the waters off Cape Breton Island in late 2003 has so far not prompted additional tests or oil drilling. Lastly, we have moved Chile's Aysén region -- where a proposed aluminum smelter threatens to devastate waterways and forests -- to our BioGems list as part of our new Patagonia Coast BioGem.
Joining our watchlist, along with the Olivillo Coastal Forest, are: the Catskills Forest Preserve, where giant casinos and golf courses threaten to disturb protected wild areas; the Northwest Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Reserve, where the Bush administration is poised to initiate industrial fishing; the Alacran Reef, where a plan to build 23 oil wells would bring seismic explosions and pollution; and the Amazon Frontier, where new animal-feed plantations and a highway are devouring the tropical rainforest.
BioGems 2005: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (U.S.); Castle-Bighorn (Canada); Cumberland Plateau (U.S.); Greater Everglades (U.S.); Heart of the Boreal Forest (Canada); Patagonia Coast (Chile); Redrock Wilderness (U.S.); Tahuamanú Rainforest (Peru); Tongass National Forest (U.S.); Upper Gulf of California (Mexico); Western Arctic Reserve (U.S.); Yellowstone/Greater Rockies (U.S.).
BioGems Watchlist 2005: Alacran Reef (Mexico); Amazon Frontier (Brazil); Catskills Forest Preserve (U.S.); Copper River (U.S.); Forest of the Rock (Canada); Great Bear Rainforest (Canada); Great North Woods (U.S.); Hawaiian Islands Whale Sanctuary (U.S.); Northwest Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Reserve (U.S.); Olivillo Coastal Forest (U.S.).
