what is your favorite thing about living in oregon i hear it's so beautiful!
Honestly, that’s the main reason I love living here! No place is perfect and the government could certainly do a much better job taking care of our ecosystems…. but the places we do have left are absolutely stunning. Oregon is absolutely beautiful. However, it will take effort to keep it that way, we often take it for granted - point and case, the Columbia River Gorge.
The nice thing about Oregon is that many ecologically rich places are still in relatively great condition, in spite of nitrogen rain-down poisoning (our cars and lifestyle habits are causing excess nitrogen deposition which is killing plant diversity and no one likes to talk about it), humans spreading seeds/spores because they don’t think about cleaning their shoes/dogs after each hike ( PEOPLE THINK IT SOUNDS SILLY BUT IT’S AN ISSUE AND IT BOTHERS ME AS A CONSERVATION BIOLOGIST OKAY? T_T I don’t care if it makes me sound hella ocd, which I am too. HAH.), and general land disturbance caused by human overpopulation. Nature is so impressive and the PNW ecosystems are quite unique as a temperate rainforest zone, one of the few in the world. The biomass here is greater than the tropical rainforests, which is difficult to explain until you see the ancient forests left, especially the Olympic Peninsula Area, some of Oregon’s cape forests, several interior forest regions I don’t care to mention because I like to keep them secret, and the Northern Redwoods (mainly in California along the Smith River, which is not dammed and pure). They are so full of life and it’s invigorating. Not to mention, Oregon has some pretty steep environmental gradients, so there are tons of different environment types and endemic species if you know where to look.
I really appreciate the message and fun question!
