January 9th, 2025, Talk: Rebuilding Our Natural Communities After Disaster Strikes
Gardening For Life Project is kicking off the new year with a truly special speaker and a powerful topic.
JJ Apodaca is the Executive Director of ARC - the Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy. ARC is focused on identifying and conserving the highest priority places for amphibians and reptiles in the United States. Protecting endangered amphibians and reptiles by implementing localized, on the ground, conservation projects is what they are all about.
© Erin Adams
From Arc, “In Western North Carolina, the salamander capital of the world, salamanders represent the largest single species of biomass in the forest. They serve to contain insect populations and keep a myriad of other creatures in check. They also serve as a food source to larger species. If salamanders were to disappear, the entire food chain could collapse.” This is how important they are and is just one of many reasons why the work that ARC does is critical.
JJ’s talk - Come Helene and Highwaters: Rebuilding Our Natural Communities After Disaster Strikes will be particularly timely given the devastation to WNC from Hurricane Helene and the impact on imperiled amphibians and reptiles.
Smithsonian Magazine’s November 4th article, “Hurricane Helene Battered the ‘Salamander Capital of the World’ With Floods and Landslides. Will the Beloved Amphibians Survive the Aftermath?” highlighted this topic. JJ Apodaca was one of the scientists featured in the article. He shared -“The biggest-scale issue that I’m worried about is that the southern Appalachians is just such an area of high endemicity and a lot of those species are in extremely small ranges.” In fact, many species do not exist in any other part of the world. We highly recommend the article!
We invite you to learn more about ARC and the extraordinary work JJ and his team are doing by joining us for an informative, inspiring and fascinating evening.
January 9th from 6-8 (Doors open at 5:30)
Free to the public, but tickets are required. - Please check back here or via our Facebook page in December for information regarding seat registration.
Location: Isothermal Community College, Columbus, NC campus
1255 West Mills Street Columbus, NC 28722
Gardening For Life Project is a community initiative focused on celebrating ways we can all make a difference to preserve and protect biodiversity in the Carolina Foothills and beyond. Our team consists of Donna Younkin, Karen Bird, Anita Saulmon, Vard Henry and Corrie Woods. We do our work in partnership with the Congregational Church (UCC) of Tryon.
Additional Partners include: