Re: NANFA-L-- Flame Chub Testimony On Friday

Bruce Stallsmith (fundulus-in-hotmail.com)
Sat, 05 Nov 2005 12:32:59 -0500

It went pretty well. I was the first of four speakers talking after the
official business meeting of the Alabama Environmental Management
Commission, which oversees the Alabama Department of Environmental
Management (ADEM). There were about 100 people in attendance, including
various ADEM employees, lawyers, environmental activists, and reporters
including Alababam Public Radio. I only spoke for about 6-7 minutes,
reporting on why flame chubs are interesting in terms of environmental
management, what I did in terms of sampling effort, what I found, and what I
think it means. That's a lot in 7 minutes! I noted that the fish was missing
in 12 of 17 historic sites and that I attributed most of that loss to land
use changes, especially suburban expansion and more intensive agriculture.
The chairman of the Commission asked me what I think it means and what can
be found out further about it, so I told him... that I'm going to do more
survey work next warm season. Two of the commissioners present are
considered to be pro-industry and seemed to tune me out, while the chair and
vice-chair were listening as I addressed them. It depends on which governor
appointed them, which I'll leave-in-that.

This commission is important in the state because they make key decisions
about a wide range of enviornmental issues-in-the state level. So now I've
introduced formal testimony, with written material, that this species is in
decline and that's due in large part to developmental activities that this
commission can affect. That doesn't mean they will, of course, but now they
can't say they didn't know.

The fun part was having people in the audience I didn't know come up to me
after the meeting and thank me for testifying. More people than we might
think accept local biodiversity issues as important in a bigger picture,
even if those people don't know much about native fishes.

--Bruce Stallsmith
along the balmy Tennessee
Huntsville, AL, US of A

>From: Prizma-in-aol.com
>Reply-To: nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org
>To: nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org
>Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- Flame Chub Testimony On Friday
>Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 09:23:37 EST
>
>hey bruce...
>how did the flame chub testimony go?
>
>casper
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