Conservation Column: Oregon Forests Promote Planetary Health
Posted on Wednesday, October 10th, 2018Good reasons to conserve the forests always include concern for the welfare of birds and other living beings. But that’s just the beginning. Two recent scientific reports highlight important roles that birds play in the world. And birds need healthy forests.
The first report (Science, 2018) warns that a warming climate will mean a significant increase in losses of major food crops to insect pests. Increased temperatures mean more insects, resulting in greater crop losses. The losses for wheat, an important Oregon crop, will increase 46 percent for each rise of 2 degrees Celsius. A second report (The Science of Nature, 2018) documents the importance of birds in controlling insect populations—insectivorous birds consume between 400 and 500 million tons of insects per year. Forest-dwelling birds consume around 75 per cent of that total. So it makes sense to conserve bird habitat, due to the vital role of birds in the food web (including insect control), as well as for their pollination prowess and seed dispersing skills.