Search
Nat. Parks by
state!WorldTourist.com {home} About - North AMERICA, Washington D.C. | Environment | Virtual Tours | Add your site to WorldTourist |
- Bahamas - Canada - Cuba - Mexico - United States
Find your next home at: OregonRadar.com - Oregon and all US homes "for sale" Multiple Listings + Other sources!
Alkan Highway Road Conditions USA Road Weather & Camera Views
Search
Nat. Parks by
state!
About - North America has a varied climate from hot and arid in the southwest sector to wet and rainy up the northern California coast through Oregon and Washington. Crossing east the Coast mountains and then the Cascades get most of the moisture and between the Cascades and the Rocky Mountains it is mostly high desert country. The Rockies on the western flank of the continent are the highest and longest mountain range. Some of the younger formations such as the Cascades, Teton range, and the Sierra Nevada's are the most breath taking. The eastern half of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Mexico, have dryer climates and much is plains through the Mississippi Valley. Along the eastern flank are the older, hardwood covered Appalachians. The U.S. was once covered with native Indians and the plains with bison. Current population and industry is concentrated in the northeast section on the continent. Canada has most of the natural forest left on the continent. Population in Canada is concentrated along the border of the United States. Mexico is the world's largest Spanish-speaking country. Central America and the Caribbean have nearly 30 countries and islands.
Environment - The North American continent is rich in minerals and oil, much of which has been capped for future production. It was once rich in timber resources but has been razed by large timber companies. They masquerade under a cover of money, with special interest politicians, and talk about their re-forestation projects! The fact is, the original large trees that covered the natural forests are gone! The once large tree forests, that were impervious to ground fires, that cleared the fuels from the forest floors, on natural burns, prevented runaway fires. This is part of the reason that prescribed burns no longer work, the smaller trees have their first needle limbs within reach of most ground fires. Please understand that I am in favor of prescribed burns done wisely! It is an important part of the natural forest evolution, without it you get a forest thick in fuels, much like the situation a few years ago at Yellowstone! Wildfires under the wrong conditions must be controlled and that includes smart prescribed burns! The natural forest trees have been replaced with trees 1/10th the size and then harvested with clear cutting, that destroys the natural habitat and washes the hill sides into the rivers, where it does further damage to the fish habitat! Meanwhile, the lack of larger trees and increased cost of production killed most wood products companies and these large companies are now exporting our remaining natural resource of smaller logs, on barges, to places like Malaysia and Japan where they will manufacture the wood products and sell them back to us at a profit. I won't mention the name of these companies but they are warehouser's of destruction! We had better wake up and cap the forest resources of this country and find people for forest management that understand the right time of year and types of forest to prescribe burns that remove ground fuels from the forest floors.