You can be nature's best hope...
I used to teeter on the edge of despair when thinking about the health of earths ecosystems and our human relationship with them. With so many techy distractions eating our attention, personal dramas occupying our time, and colonial worldviews perpetuating divisions between people and people, and people and planet, it seemed so few of us would be able or willing to effectively engage in caring conservation.
That was until I became more educated about the role that urban and suburban yards and landscapes could play in profoundly impacting the diversity and quality of life in towns and watersheds.
Advocate, author, entomologist and professor, Douglas Tallamy, is playing a significant role in educating the world about how you, me, our neighbors, and our communities can truly create positive change. The title of his book itself: Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard, was enough for me to step back from the ledge of despair and onto a path of simple, pleasing action that makes a real difference: thoughtful gardens and yards.
With the continued transformation of land everywhere from natural, native spaces to strip malls, roads and sterile housing developments, there is less and less space and resources for wildlife to migrate, find food, nest, mate, raise young, and live the healthy life they deserve. With minimal places left and corridors' interrupted by large tracks of human-dominated concrete jungles, the future of biodiversity is dramatically at risk.
But there is something we can do to truly help protect and support the wild beings and creatures we enjoy and wish to co-exist with: Restore native plants to our suburban ecosystems.
That was until I became more educated about the role that urban and suburban yards and landscapes could play in profoundly impacting the diversity and quality of life in towns and watersheds.
Advocate, author, entomologist and professor, Douglas Tallamy, is playing a significant role in educating the world about how you, me, our neighbors, and our communities can truly create positive change. The title of his book itself: Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard, was enough for me to step back from the ledge of despair and onto a path of simple, pleasing action that makes a real difference: thoughtful gardens and yards.
With the continued transformation of land everywhere from natural, native spaces to strip malls, roads and sterile housing developments, there is less and less space and resources for wildlife to migrate, find food, nest, mate, raise young, and live the healthy life they deserve. With minimal places left and corridors' interrupted by large tracks of human-dominated concrete jungles, the future of biodiversity is dramatically at risk.
But there is something we can do to truly help protect and support the wild beings and creatures we enjoy and wish to co-exist with: Restore native plants to our suburban ecosystems.
