cc: grassland@erols.com date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 14:58:50 -0400 from: Adam Markham subject: Comments on US brochure to: m.hulme@uea.ac.uk, n.sheard@uea.ac.uk looks pretty good to me. here are a few suggestions: I know the sea-level rise section is boilerplate, but how about being a bit more specific for the US? Maybe highlight vulnerability of New York, Boston and Miami for eample? In the section on Sea-level rise and the Chesapeake Bay, I think it would be more useful for us if you mentioned a couple of other areas where coastal wetlandss are under threat. I'm thinking particularly of the Florida Keys (threat to endemic Keys pine rocklands plant communities and habitat for the endangered Key deer); Florida everglades - encroachment of mangroves and extreme low-lying nature; dieback of coastal cabbage palm swamps in Florida and massive loss of tupelo/Cypress swamp in Louisiana (forming "ghost forests"). Tonight I'll e-mail a draft report I've written on threats to Florida ecosystems, which details all this. Also on the Chesapeake Bay, I thinbk Blackwater is on the Bay not near it. Make sure you put another "a" in Delaware. I like the prairie pothole stuff. Can we mention some of the species that would be affected? Such as American wigeon, black duck and blue-winged teal. In Jay Malcolm's vulnerability analysis done for WWF's 1997 US parks report, North Dakota's national wildlife refuges were top of the list. So you might want to put something about the threat to "North Dakota's numerous national wildlife refuges". There has been one study (POiani and Johnson, 1993) which suggested that the smaller wetalnds would be most vulnerable and that these are the ones that are idsproportionately important for wildfowl. Hope this helps. Adam