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  1. Fragile Beauty The threats to Colorado’s native plants

  2. In Colorado, human action, whether deliberate or accidental, has altered the ecological health of native vascular plant species.

  3. Major causes of loss: Degradation Alteration Fragmentation

  4. Land uses contributing to the ongoing threats: • Water Development • Water Diversion • Fire Suppression • Road Building • Urbanization • Mining • Recreation • Grazing

  5. CASE STUDY: Penstemonpenlandii

  6. One Known Site: Middlepark, Grand County, Colorado Growth area: 2.4 km long, 0.8 km wide

  7. Colorado is home to over 2,500 species of native flora Six currently listed on the Federal Endangered Species List Over 300 plant species currently tracked by the Colorado Heritage Program

  8. The most significant alteration to Colorado habitat is agricultural use, either through crop production or as range land.

  9. Logging has permanently altered ponderosa and lodgepole pine forests

  10. In the Southern Rockies, 11% of the region is within some sort of protected status, but 70% of that protected land is above 10,000 feet.

  11. Mining: Pollution from past mining practices Erosion of native rangeland Loss of riparian and wetland areas Hydrologic modification Contaminated sediments

  12. Twenty-two states, including Colorado, have lost at least 50% of their original wetlands.

  13. The loss of wetlands due to beaver kill, grazing, agriculture, and human habitation has effectively destroyed the most diverse ecosystems in Colorado.

  14. Urban and suburban density levels grew by an average annual rate of 7.8% from 1960 to 1990, and are expected to increase by an additional 1.4 million acres by the year 2020.

  15. Increased activity Introduction of household pets The spread of toxic chemicals The suppression of natural processes, such as fire or flood

  16. Colorado authorities are currently actively working to control the spread of over 50 invasive, non-native plants.

  17. The effect of losing native plant species is much like the loss of primary predators within an ecosystem.

  18. Change is always present. • Rapidchangescauseextinctions • The introduction of any organism • into an ecosystem is change • The more change, the more difficult • it is for organisms to adapt and survive • The more rapidly new species inhabit • a region, the more unstable is the • composition of the flora and fauna of • that region

  19. Within one human lifetime, the prairies have passed from wilderness to become the most altered habitat in this country and one of the most disturbed, ecologically simplified and overexploited regions in the world. The essence of what we risk losing when the grasslands are destroyed is not a species here or a species there, but a quality of life… Dr. Adrian Forsyth "The End of Emptiness" 1982

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