Medium is a two year old platform that introduces thoughtful blog posts on various topics from various authors. It is the brain child of the inventor of twitter and is getting some good attention. Look what it featured yesterday from Megan Michel,

The Beaver, the Salmon, the River, and the Forest: Protecting California’s Intricate Ecosystems

By building dams, beavers create flooded wetlands with deep water reserves. As the California nonprofit Beavers & Brush points out, these creatures keep nine times as much water running through the ecosystem just by making their homes. Not only do beavers keep streams flowing throughout the year, but they also mitigate erosion, improve water quality, and support abundant biodiversity. Dams and the water channels carved by beavers purify the water and leave more stable stream banks. These natural engineers create a wetter, more stable environment that allows plants and animals to thrive — including humans.

The beaver’s activity in rivers and forests creates the right conditions for the salmon to thrive. Beaver ponds are deep enough to stay cool in the sun, and (according to this great article published recently in Smithsonian Magazine) they increase the amount of water available in summer months by 20%. Salmon need cool, clean water to breed — so beaver-engineered habitats are perfect for a juvenile salmon nursery, and can help support the population numbers that salmon need in order to face their treacherous journey from mountain to sea and back again.

So beaver make it possible for salmon and then the salmon make it possible for forests, Isn’t that a excellently organized? I mean until humans come along and start eating all the salmon and killing the beavers.

In California, we’re trying to save our forests by stopping the practice of clearcutting, a destructive logging method that replaces healthy, natural forests with man-made timber plantations. This unsustainable practice is putting our wildlife and our watersheds in danger — and it’s happening every day.

Based on data obtained from CAL FIRE, more than 50,000 acres of California forest are being clearcut every year. We must choose more sustainable logging methods. We must reject the destructive practice of clearcutting in order to defend our complex forest ecosystems — ecosystems that support terraced beaver marsh habitats, the wriggling bundle of vital nutrient cycling that is the salmon, and the clean, connective water that our river veins provide..

I guess the silver lining is that when the beavers are gone and all the salmon are gone AND the forests are gone they’ll be nothing left to burn right?

Just the houses..