Friday 1/19/2007 Afternoon Presentation-Biodiversity of Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau

Michael Hodge, Tennessee State Park Ranger at Frozen Head State Park, presented information on the biodiversity of the Cumberland Plateau.

Michael spent some time celebrating the successes of the reintroduction of the Black Bear, River Otter, and Elk into the Cumberland Plateau. All of their numbers seem to be increasing on the Plateau.

Michael also spent a lot of time explaining the threats to nature on the Cumberland Plateau:

1. Mining Mining companies are giving up the destructive process of strip mining for an even worse one, mountaintop removal. They simply use explosives to remove the soil from mountain tops to more economically extract coal from the ground. The process flattens the mountain, washes sediment into the valleys, and exposes sulphur and iron. The streams are polluted which results in fish kills. The coal is needed it keep pace with OUR ever increasing demand for electricity. For more information, see Kilowatt Ours.

Oil spills and habitat fragmentation also result from the increasing number of natural gas wells on the plateau.

2. Logging Logging is also a threat as logging companies remove the heterogeneous hardwood forests and replace them with homogeneous softer woods such as pine. This practice has made the plateau’s forests much more susceptible to pests (such as the pine bark beetle) and disease.

The amazing biodiversity of the Cumberland Plateau is threatened, but there are some bright spots. The State of Tennessee and other groups such as the Nature Conservancy are trying to preseve some of the habitat. There are currently over 600,000 acres under public ownership for preservation (National Park Service, Tennessee State Parks, and Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency).

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