Endangered Places In The South Named By Southern Environmental Law Center (PHOTOS)

Which areas of the southern United States are the most endangered?

The Southern Environmental Law Center, a Charlottesville, Virginia-based nonprofit legal advocacy group, has released their fourth annual list of the top 10 places in the southern U.S. that "face immediate, potentially irreparable threats in 2012," according to a press release.

The SELC explains that the places on the list are endangered by efforts to "undercut environmental protections and to lower the hurdles for potentially destructive projects."

Marie Hawthorne, SELC's director of development, said in the press release, "The South's special places and natural riches are threatened by a wave of calculated attacks on the bedrock laws that protect our environment and health. Under the guise of promoting economic growth, anti-environmental forces are working in Congress, in state legislatures, and in government agencies to gut our most essential safeguards."

To view the SELC's 2011 list of the 10 most endangered places in the South, visit their website.

Advocating on behalf of endangered animals is also an important task. Check out photos by National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore, who is traveling around the U.S. photographing endangered animals in zoos.

List and captions courtesy of Southern Environmental Law Center. Images courtesy of credited photographers.

Comments

[tform97]

01:06 PM on 02/04/2012

We need to increase CO2 levels to grow more crops to feed the people. Just think, 3 growing seasons in the north, 2 in the far north. We could feed billions more, with global warming. More CO2 means higher crop yields from the best solar energy conversion process known to mankind.

[tform97]

01:00 PM on 02/04/2012

We need to set all this carbon energy free. It has been in chains far too long. It was all free before. Drill, mine, frack, burn it and help the plants,,, they need the CO2,, we need the CO2 to grow more food per acre to feed the billions of people.

[meleagrid]

12:48 AM on 01/28/2012

Jane Goodall ought to be on this list

[Oginikwe]

12:07 AM on 01/28/2012

The whole planet should be on this list.

[robert9671]

09:15 PM on 01/27/2012

I live near Dawson Forest and the area is run by Republican Incorporated so we should go ahead and plan on the area being destroyed so a few can get rich.

[tform97]

01:11 PM on 02/04/2012

The biggest problem with getting rich, is you are forced to support the poor.

[robert9671]

08:19 PM on 02/04/2012

That was a commandment of the Christ for this so called Christian nation.

[belldn3]

08:49 PM on 01/27/2012

Hit us back when the South itself is endangered.

[Deep Thinking Man]

06:22 PM on 01/27/2012

i have a friend who lives outside Charlottesville...guaranteed she doesn't know she'll be affected !!!!!

[Davidc Smith]

10:43 AM on 01/27/2012

This is what happens when a country loses control of its own economic destiny in favor of enriching the "International Elite. The fact that people have to live here is an impediment to the amassing of wealth for foriegn interests. I live within a a two hours drive of most of these places, and know first hand the horrors of Mountain Top Removel--most of which enrich Russian or German concerns--so whats a few dead Americans to them, and what do they care about our cancer rates and poisoned watersheds so long as they get to drink their wine in Dubai. It gives new meaning to the phrase sold down the river....

[tform97]

01:13 PM on 02/04/2012

You don't have to live here. Move.

[Davidc Smith]

12:24 PM on 02/06/2012

Actually my kith and kin have lived in these mountains since before the American revolution--which they participated in. I consider them worth fighting for, Maybe you should be the one to move. Perhaps China would make you a nice home with a buisness friendly gov to provide you all the structure you seem to need in life.

[JScott]

10:38 AM on 01/27/2012

Very little of the SE US is not trammeled by humans.

[tform97]

01:17 PM on 02/04/2012

Are you one of those 'tramplers'? So you are guilty of killing earth too? Do you live off the land in a scrap wood lean-to and eat bugs?

[Rynchostylus]

02:37 AM on 01/27/2012

I think they forgot one spot...Rational-Thinking-Ville

[kansaswoman]

11:51 PM on 01/29/2012

Critical-Thinking Village and Intelligent-Land should also be on the list.

[whoknew222]

11:26 PM on 01/26/2012

Great, just great. The very first picture is right where I live. I'm trying to encourage recycling and end burning and this is what they're doing instead? Have they no shame? We were blessed with a fairly light smattering of oil from the BP disaster but apparently they do not see it that way. They are now selling the leftover materials that were used to stop the spread and soak up the oil. They must not realise they are going to need them.

[carolineeaton]

01:35 AM on 01/27/2012

I was just going to quick look at this site. It is sickening, and I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm sorry WhoKnew, but it's not like a lot of us don't care. It's everywhere. It surprises me that the planet still supports human life, and with 7.5 billion of us on the planet. This Earth is a miracle. Obama (I am partyless when it comes to the environment) is recommending natural gas as our solution to better energy. Natural gas will become Big natural gas like Big oil, and will ignore safety regs and spew out methane. With natural gas they are going to be going into pristine areas (Alaska is one) and destroying that too. Unbelievable. Obama is also still supporting oil and industry. Why doesn't he just explode a neutron bomb on us? He was all nuclear reactors until Fukushima. You don't want to know about the threat of solar storms to nuclear reactors peppered all over our country, and they predict over the next few years we are going to have some whoppers. A new movie out is: Atomic States of America. It talks about the children with low-radiation, rare cancer, around the nuclear reactors in this country. Grrh. But I send prayers, love and light to the planet/people/children everyday, and I know somehow we are going to make things better. You are right. We can do the impossible because the fact is we have to.

[whoknew222]

02:06 AM on 01/27/2012

I'm having a hard time believing that the earth is supporting 7.5 billion and that so few seem concerned about the environment. I've heard every excuse that it will heal itself. From evolution to revolution. If that were true why the need to heal? This natural gas is much riskier to harvest and there is at least one well in the gulf they are considering tapping. I'd like to think there is a long term goal for the benefit of all people but there is nothing to support any theory I've seen. Where is all the food going to come from, for one, and the funds for all these other necessities surrounding that amount? Somewhere along the line the camel's back will surely weaken under the strain. Not much makes much sense in terms of conservation or economiics for all involved. It is the future generations that will need the resourses to tackle these issues and educations are essential to their success, something certainly lagging and neglected, without a reasonable explanation. If we are to find these future leaders are they to come from an exclusive, privaleged group of individuals with the masses left to flounder along with the earth they rely on? I cannot see the benefit in the lack of an education and job skills. Kids don't even know what manners or table napkins are anymore. We are fortunate to live in a country of privalege and I'm not complaing about what we do have. I do hope

[Moose Luck 99]

06:03 PM on 01/26/2012

Do not worry Newt was there with his a grand kids to clean it up and save money!

[ThinkCreeps]

06:13 PM on 01/26/2012

The school is the most endangered place in the south.

[mistergg69]

11:19 PM on 01/26/2012

Newt is planning on settling the moon if he becomes President. OBAMA 2012

[Chicago Green Limo]

04:02 PM on 01/26/2012

Shocking and highly disturbing ... Think Green when it comes to everyday choices. It's simple... Reduce, Reuse and Recycle!

[eric14]

06:30 PM on 01/26/2012

I am trying. Spread the word. People are listening. Takes time but it is happening.

[kwaut lizard]

10:42 AM on 01/28/2012

Clearly it will require some growing pains for the concept to be universally excepted but it will happen, even if out of absolute necessity.

[Linus521]

02:55 PM on 01/26/2012

The landscapes most sacred to all of life are the natural and wild biotic communities or ecosystems whether it is a natural, wild bay, forest, shoreline, wetland, river or wilderness landscape. Agriculture, farm lands and cities are devoid of ecosystems and scramble the living dynamics of ecosystems. Example, a farm artificially supports one or two species while ecosystems naturally support countless.

Natural ecosystems are the eco-nomy of all life, life itself, from oxygen releasing to the atmosphere, fresh water, food, the nitrogen cycle, circulation of vital nutrients, the climate, new medicines, pest control and the regulation and control of human disease pathogens to purification of the air and water to flood control and a long list of why life exists. All ecosystems have loops and feedbacks to the climate and the atmosphere, and they all create the life zone of the Earth, the biosphere/ecosphere.

The salvation and protection of ecosystems should be the guiding light in all conservation endeavors beyond a pretty countryside and pastoral settings, and of course, cities are heat islands. We must endeavor to protect ecosystems beyond all other considerations because Earth and mankind's lives depend upon it.

A thing is right when it tends to conserve and preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the natural and wild biotic community.

[eric14]

06:31 PM on 01/26/2012

The sacred places.

[Linus521]

07:57 PM on 01/26/2012

While man can plow a pasture and plant grass and trees, these are man's landscapes. What of the magic, mystery and majesty landscape of all the Gods? The garden of Eden, paradise found, the alpha and the omega, the living true and real body of Earth?

[Hal May]

07:48 PM on 01/27/2012

As a horticulturist I can assure you that we as an industry are moving in the direction of returning back to the old practices that foster a more ecologically sound landscape. Organic management of the soil as a means to cut out synthetic petroleum based fertilizers and reduce pesticide applications is gaining real traction in the industry. Additionally, there has been a real push to improve man made landscapes via utilizing native plants with an emphasis on plant diversity. The days are coming when no pesticides or fertilizers will be allowed for aesthetic purposes in landscapes.

[Linus521]

09:18 PM on 01/27/2012

Hal, certainly you are expressing some great positives of which everyone can applaud. However, long before man created landscapes, the Earth created ecosystems and the biological diversity that creates and sustains them. Man can manage the soil, organically and he can grow, crops, trees, but as of yet, he cannot re-create an ecosystem.

Man can plant native plants; however, ecosystems are so complex, science currently understands only one percent of the totality of how they function and cycle to create and sustain all life. An ecosystem functions as one whole organism, a land community that is one. An ecosystem is the myriad of microorganisms in the soil, to invertebrates, to all species of plant and animal biological diversity and their niches and symbiotic relationships, and the energy in an ecosystem that flows one way.

Some of the nation's most ecologically savvy scientists attempted to create an ecosystem in the 80s with the biospheres. The biospheres failed. Weeds and cockroaches took over. In SoCal, science attempted to re-create a wetland for an endangered bird. The bird never adapted to the man-made attempt.

Scientists have remarked, second growth forests are no more life supporting than a slab of concrete. With each new growth, the big trees recede into smaller trees, and frequently devolve into brush, bushes and grass, and once the soil is disturbed by human intrusion, opportunistic weeds quickly take over in the vacated soil. Weeds and animals weeds hold down no jobs or roles in any ecosystem.

[SCStoday]

02:41 PM on 01/26/2012

This destruction of such wonderful and beautiful landscape and waterways is absolutely sinful.

I find it very suspicious that Canadian capitalism has found it's way to our country.

[jadams2213]

09:45 AM on 01/28/2012

As a SC native I think you need to take a closer look at home and point the finger also.