Well, If you take a population of plants from a location that is being
'developed,' grow and manage their genetic pool and basically maintain
the viablity of this population, *How* do you reintroduce the plant?
The original site is gone so where can any plant be placed where it
will not out compete native flora or just fade away? Basically, these
*reintroductions* programs seem to be missing this point or am I
missing something here? I understand that there are 'studies' done
but what can be learnt from these? Do these studies last for hundreds
of years? In order to get good data on ecosystems like forests you
need to take into account the life time of the residents and things like
fire and succession (bogs/wetlands turning into forest and ?back?).
There is way too much info we don't have. r
And the info we have is *not* being put to use. When I visited the
Okeefonokee (sp?) swamp in Georgia, we was a presentation about
the park. During this we learnt that it is fire that maintains the
praires (where S.minor grows very well) and that without fire, the
sphagnum will fill the land and displace the water and only forest
will remain, hence no more park. Of course, there have been no fires
allowed in the park since it was started. So ineffect, the people
who are in charge of maintaining the park are helping to end it.
Dave Evans