America’s Amazon in South Alabama

Fifteen minutes from Mobile, Ala., is the Greater Mobile-Tensaw River area that features such biodiversity it has been called “America’s Amazon.” A recent report - called the “State of Knowledge” - aims to shine a light on the natural and cultural landmark in hopes of protecting it and its surrounding areas from development. The report surveys the region’s key resources, including likely the greatest turtle diversity in the world, unique geology and hydrology, and evidence of human settlements from thousands of years ago. One of its leading proponents is Dr. Edward O. Wilson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard University scientist and native Alabamian. “Remarkably little has changed in the Red Hills and Mobile-Tensaw Delta since my boyhood in the 1940s,” Dr. Wilson said in the forward. “Industries and housing are pressing in on the habitable edges, and the pollution of the river waters is rising inexorably. The populations of Mobile and the Bay coasts are growing and spreading rapidly. Yet for a while longer this small wilderness will persist, a priceless window on deep history, and a national treasure at multiple levels. The value of the greater Mobile-Tensaw River area is great, unique, and if lost cannot be recreated.” (Source: National Parks Traveler 01/05/17)