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Volume 40, Issue 6. Today is .

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Volume 40, Issue 6
November 19, 2002

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Behavior change needed to attack ecological issues
By Joseph Luchenta
For the Mesa Legend

Wit the 32nd anniversary of Earth Day less than six months away and President Bush following the tradition of his father earlier this year and failing to comply with the Kyoto Accord, it appears that being an environmentalist is not quite en vogue in the United States.

Despite its lack of pertinence in mainstream culture, environmental concern and action are still behaviors that certainly demand and need attention.

MCC’s very own Environmental Action Club has felt the losses caused by environmental apathy via low membership and involvement.

Nevertheless, the dedicated students who accept the challenge of fighting to preserve our environment have been participating each year in a vast number of activities and projects worthy of respect.
Resident faculty member Ron Dinchak, also one of the chief advisors for the EAC, offers a class titled “Natural History of the Southwest” (Biology 109 & 110), a highly interactive and participatory course that allows non-science-majors to fulfill a lab requirement by doing service projects within the state of Arizona.
This semester the class aided the Arizona Game and Fish Department in a crayfish removal project aimed at reducing the number of non-native crayfish in natural Arizona habitats that had been devastated by crayfish presence.

The EAC joined Dinchak’s class in the removal and frequently performs direct services that positively impact Arizona’s natural environment, such as their biannual trip to the San Pedro River where members receive education as well as a service learning experience.

The club camps along the San Pedro, which happens to be the last free-flowing river in the Southwest, and facilitates river clean up activities as well as education activities.

Dinchak, who has helped organize the trip for several years now, humbly states that, “This is one thing that I can do just to help everybody.

The students come back after the San Pedro experience and it’s changed their lives.”
The EAC holds its general meetings every Tuesday at 2:00pm in LS201.

They also regularly maintain the MCC Xeriscape/Community Garden, which provides students with an opportunity to experiment in growing herbs and produce, including those that are pesticide free.

Beginning in Oct., the club had a series of three lectures hosted by professionals addressing topics of concern specific to their expertise.

The first lecture was given by Russ Haughey of the Arizona Game and Fish Department on Oct. 15. Haughey discussed the importance of the heritage fund in respect to Arizona wildlife preservation.

He also outlined some of the causes and effects of the intensity of the Rodeo-Chideski fire.

One of the issues addressed by Haughey was the importance of the Heritage Fund, a fund which exists solely by the proceeds allocated to it from Arizona State Lottery ticket sales.

The Heritage Fund is one of the main sources of funding for many wildlife preservation projects including those carried out by the Arizona Game and Fish Department.

Dinchak’s voice echoed concern over the threat being posed to the Heritage Fund, “A lot of grants given by the Heritage Fund have been for school yard wildlife habitats, they’ve gone into environmental education, research, they’ve done marvelous things from my perspective. I would hate to see that disappear.”

According to Haughey, the Arizona Game and Fish Department has the legal responsibility to manage wildlife populations, they have little authority over actual habitats because they own very little land.
Most of the habitat in Arizona is owned either privately or by the Forest Service.

This requires representatives of Game and Fish, such as Mr. Haughey to instigate cooperation among land owners in the pursuit of wildlife preservation.

Mr. Haughey described his job as having to “work with all of the land owners and try to get them to do beneficial things on their land for wildlife.”

In conjunction with their dedication to wildlife, the Game and Fish Department studies the effects fire has on Arizona habitats.

This year’s Rodeo-Chideski fire was one that received particular attention from Game and Fish.

Haughey also pointed out in his presentation that the fire suppression tactics practiced in the state of Arizona, as well as those practiced through out the western United States, were not particularly beneficial in the long run.

Prior to 1919, few fires in the U. S. were actually extinguished by human intent and when fires started burning up a large part of the west, a movement to put out any and all fires began.

The shortsightedness of this approach neglected to respect the positive effects that fires can have on the environment.

Haughey more precisely puts fire ecology in perspective saying, “There are positive environmental affects of wildfires …it reinvigorates habitats and quite often after a fire the plant community is more productive for wildlife; fires recycle nutrients that are tied up in the old plant tissue.”

Haughey also explained some of the less noticeable affects of fire, such as increased water flows among springs because of the reduction in the amount of plant life absorbing the flows.

One of the negative affects of overzealous fire suppression is an excess buildup of “litter,” or natural debris, such as large branches and heavy layers of pine needles and leaves on the forest floor.
This excess litter provides a channel for wildfires to spread extremely rapid.

In more naturally occurring environments, there would be frequent small fires to burn up much of the fuel created by litter without devastating entire habitats.

Ideally, Arizona Game and Fish Department officials would like to see more of a mosaic landscape in Arizona.

A landscape where some areas are very lush and unscathed by fire for many years, while others are very barren and may have seen fire recently as well as some areas that would be median in comparison.
The last lecture hosted by the EAC for this semester will be on Nov. 19, in LS201 and will be hosted by faculty member and EAC advisor Bonnie Kalison.

Bonnie will be speaking about the problems of the Australian Great Barrier Reef ecosystem.

Another activity being lead by Dinchak is a winter intersession class which enables education majors to become certified in “Project Wild,” an environmental and conservation education program focusing on wildlife and facilitated by Arizona Game and Fish.
Students who enroll participate in community gardening at both the MCC campus and Desert Botanical Gardens.

The class, BIO 149AK section 2631, is a one credit hour course that begins on Jan. 8.

The EAC will be continuing to have meetings open to the public every Tuesday at 2:00 pm in LS201 throughout the semester.

Interested students are invited to attend and can participate as often or as infrequently as they wish.

The Environmental Action Club will continue to give students with an environmentalist spirit a chance to focus their energy on local issues and increase their knowledge of environmental science.