THE RECONCILIATION ECOLOGY PLAN

I live in one of those neighborhoods that is peppered with streets named "Red Oak Lane," "Beech Street," and "Elm Avenue."  Years ago these streets were littered with rows of trees, but today they are lined with ornamental plantings that bare little resemblance to their namesake.  Though off topic, I wanted to share with you something near and dear to my heart.  Close friends and family would verify my status as a tree hugger.  In fact, the nickname bestowed upon me from my father-in-law is PETA.  I have a deep respect for wildlife and the environment, and have been known to make friends with creatures most individuals would consider a third stage, red alert, threat to their home-front. So why the difference in thinking?  Why do some embrace nature with open arms, while others make it their mission to rid the planet of all forms of original habitat?  Is it that we are born as individuals, some with an innate love of nature, and others with a fear?

I personally believe the answer lies in understanding nature and our planet, or in most cases, the lack of understanding.  If we would invest as much energy into learning about nature, as we do trying to control it, perhaps we wouldn't feel compelled to squash it as soon as it inconvenienced us.  But of course we would first need to ditch the idea that the Earth and all of its creatures were created to serve humans.  Because I believe most would do better, if they knew better, I wanted to share some information with you.

We have more than 300 million people living in this country and no mention of a need for population control or any national recognition of the limits of the land's ability to support that many people.  We have not left enough habitat for most species to avoid extinction.  It is interesting that our attention has been drawn to the the loss of tropical forests with no mention of the devastated forests here in the U.S.  Fifteen percent of the Amazonian basin has been logged, but seventy-five percent of forests on the United States eastern sea board are gone!  In my home state of Pennsylvania, less than one percent of the land is wild.  We have paved at least four million linear miles of public road.  Add parking lots, driveways, and other paved surfaces, and you have more than 43,480 square miles of blacktop.  Compound to this our love affair with lawns and less than three percent of the land remains undisturbed for plants and animals.  We have taken ninety-seven percent of the land in the forty-eight continuous states and modified it for our own use.

Why am I telling you these depressing facts?!?  Because if we don't do something now we will have lost ninety-five percent of the species that greeted the Pilgrims.  This is not speculation, this is fact.  Unless we modify the places where we live, work, and play to meet the needs of other species, we will be the only species remaining.  If you don't understand how the extinction of every other species ensures the extinction of us as a species, well, I won't waste anymore time trying to inform you.

There is something small and easy, not nearly as vast as you would expect, that we all can do to help the situation.  We can design our living spaces, our backyard, to accommodate the basic ecological needs of other species.  With the placing of my hammock, and the mission of landscaping my property in an eco-friendly way, I began researching plantings for my yard.  In the process I discovered an amazing book, one which is helping me quote the statistics above, and opened my mind even wider to the contribution I can make to bio-diversity with my simple quarter-acre.  The predictions of mass extinction are based off assumptions that man will continue to fight co-existence with other plants and animals.  Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, Updated and Expanded by Douglas W. Tallamy, tells of an approach that may just save our planet.

We have excluded other species from our living space through thoughtlessness, not need.  This book speaks of ways we can reintegrate native plants, insects, and wildlife back into our yards.  We have come to expect perfection in our yards.  The plastic quality of artificial flowers and the pristine manicured lawn of a golf course is now the norm.  What it really is, is a garden so contrived that it is no longer a living community.  It is so unbalanced that any life form other than the desired is viewed as an enemy and quickly eliminated.  We have shopped the nursery looking for plants and trees marked pest free, that only grow so wide and so high, that promise quick growth, that do not produce messy pods, seeds, leaves, fruit, or any other sign that the tree is real and not artificial.  This is all so we can keep our yards, gardens, driveways, and gutters free of any mess.  I have neighbors who discuss this natural debris like it's toxic waste, meanwhile they don't think twice about whipping out a can, a bottle, or a drum of harmful pesticide and weed killer.

I hear them complain about the occasional insect outbreak appearing completely unaware that they most likely caused it!  You can not chop down native trees because they cause a nut or leaf to land in your yard, and replace them with a sea of Japanese ornamental trees and plants, and then be stupefied as to why you have so many stink bugs!?!?  You built them a home second only to Japan itself!

In a balanced community, no one member dominates another, at least not for long.  This is why not all of the leaves in native forests are eaten by insects. Todays gardener is so concerned about the health of their plantings that they run for the spray can at the first sight of an insect.  My husband just sprayed a bunch of bees at the insistence of a visitor who saw them looming around the front yard.  Moments later he thought, why did I just do that!?  They weren't bothering anyone.  Turns out, they were a strain of bees that rarely sting or attack anybody.  Gee, I can't imagine why our bees are going extinct if two self-proclaimed environmentalists were so quick to grab the Raid can! :-(

A sterile garden is one teetering on the brink of destruction.  It is completely dependent on the efforts of the gardener as all other checks and balances have been removed.  This is why you see a drought reek such havoc on our landscape.  All we have managed to do is create a high-impact enterprise, that requires more time and money than we have to spend.  We'd do better to employ nature for such purposes.  What if we invited more toads and bats into our yard to eat the insects we'd like to control?  When I mention this the neighbors look at me like I'm the crazy one.  Meanwhile they continue to use weed killer that is linked to birth defects!?

What's the difference between alien and native plantings?  The butterfly bush is a popular example.  It provides nectar for adult butterflies, but because it is an alien planting, not one species of butterfly in North America can use it to host larvae.  They can not reproduce on it.  To ensure survival we need to replace it with native host plants like Milkweed to ensure we will have butterflies in the future. This makes more sense than hoping butterflies will eventually adjust to the new nectar source.

We also feel the need to mow all areas of land, even roadsides.  We need to convince the civic association to stop mowing roadside that support Milkweed populations during the summer.  A single cutting in October is enough to maintain safe roadside visibility while protecting habitat and it would save the township money during this recession!  Did you know mowing for one hour produces as much pollution as driving 650 miles?  We burn 800 million gallons of gas each each year in our dirty lawnmower engines and spend 45 billion each year on lawn care.

Evolutionary biologists believe humans plant lawns without visual obstructions because we want to be able to see what danger may be lurking.  The desire to spot trouble early lingers in the human psyche.  Maybe if we understand this we could fix it, as the chances that one or two more oak trees in your yard will not enable a lion attack.  Converting lawn to trees or garden would have a three-fold affect: creating food and habitat for wildlife, absorbing carbon dioxide and reducing emissions, and saving us money.

Don't get me started on what we lose because we remove leaves that are free mulch, fertilizer, and weed control.  Some simple changes to your landscape habits could help us sustain wildlife and diversity for the rest of our years.  Be a rebel in your neighborhood like me, put up a bat house, and a corn feeding station for the chipmunks and squirrels.  Most importantly, educate yourself on the things living in and around your community.  I have heard such a fountain of misinformation spew from the mouths of those who share the homes close by.  Everything from, I am going to get rabies from a squirrel, to I am going to be killed by bats.  The facts, there has never been one recorded case of a human being contracting rabies from a squirrel in the history of the United States.  They simply are not carriers.  And as for the bats, they are far more interested in eating flying insects than me!  Some of the arguments people make against nature are just plain ignorant and ridiculous!  All while ignoring the fact that the most destructive species on the planet is man; the only species that destroys his own habitat!

Please consider the pleas I have made today.  Even if you are the only one on your block converting alien plants into native plants and inviting wildlife to seek refuse in the safety of your borders, the affect is cumulative and probably synergistic.  Check out the book I mentioned above.  It is a real eye opener and a great guide to planting eco-friendly dwellings.  Tomorrow I will share with you a list of the most helpful trees to the environment.

-PETA signing out!

"Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them."  ~Bill Vaughn