Through our BioGems watchlist, NRDC mobilizes activists to protect special wild places in addition to our 12 BioGems that are in danger or in need of continued vigilance after a BioGems victory.

After a multi-year effort by NRDC and BioGems Defenders, in February 2006 the British Columbia government announced permanent protections for this magnificent rainforest -- the only home of the ghost-white Spirit Bear.



Blanketing northern Newfoundland, this wilderness includes the oldest boreal forest in North America, but now logging companies are starting to clearcut its ancient trees.



Frenetic land sales -- in the past few years about 6 million acres of the forest changed hands -- leave these last wild northeastern woods vulnerable to logging and subdivisions.



With NRDC's help, a seven-year standoff over a sprawling resort development plan in the heart of the Catskills ended with an accord that permanently protects 86 percent of the land encompassed in the original proposal and ensures that construction on the remaining parcels will be as energy efficient and environmentally friendly as possible. Learn more about this landmark victory.



A giant mining project would destroy thousands of acres of wetlands in the Everglades, the largest subtropical wilderness in the contiguous United States, even as needed water is being siphoned off and new pumps would dump polluted water in Everglades National Park.



A planned series of Marinas and infrastructure projects for large-scale tourism could harm marine life and coastal wildlife habitat in this rich bay in the Sea of Cortez, so NRDC is working with Mexican groups to secure protection for Bahia de los Angeles as a U.N. Biosphere Reserve.



Although NRDC and our Mexican partners stopped the Mitsubishi Corporation from building a salt factory on the banks of the gray whale's only unspoiled birthing ground, Laguna San Ignacio never received permanent protection, so we are now working to buy development rights to the lagoon and to fend off any further industrialization schemes.



A proposed series of dams jeopardize La Amistad Reserve, on the border of Panama and Costa Rica in the Talamanca mountain range, a center of biodiversity and home to jaguars, giant anteaters, monkeys and more than 400 bird species.



Gigantic soybean plantations that export to European factory farms -- and the highway being built through the soy explosion -- are liquidating the wild edges of the Amazon.



In June 2006 the Bush administration designated this remote island archipelago, which is home to 70 percent of America's coral reefs, as the world's largest protected marine reserve.