Biodiversity as Poetry in Motion

Biodiversity as Poetry in Motion

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things” — Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

Why Biodiversity Matters

For the last seventeen years our family has devoted our lives to becoming land stewards and biodiversity rehabilitators. That journey has led from a small organic truck farm to regenerative agriculture, and now even deeper, to rehabilitation of abused and broken land. All along this crazy ride one clear and beautiful message has recurred over and over, how deeply biodiversity impacts our ecosystem health. The return of diverse fauna and flora species here on our land has been like watching long verse poetry in motion, changing, blooming singing across the landscape. Co-creating healthy landscapes is a chance to have a say and an impact beyond our life, planting trees and ideas that will live far longer than us.

I think we can all agree that a more resilient world is a better one, just as we can agree we want the best for our children and the future generations of children to come. If we look deeply into our ecosystems we find dysbiosis is rampant, from the microorganisms in the soil to the lack of diverse wildlife above. A healthy Forest, soil, or landscape should be teaming with life, just as a healthy human, should be vibrant and energetic; Butterflies, abundant fruits, dreamy wildflower fields, and ecosystems that build their soils through symbiotic relationships. Sounds wonderful right? These are the things we can leave as a legacy if we as a society, create a future of abundance, not just for our children but for the offspring of so many creatures we share the world with, Goldfinches, monarchs, Red Oaks, friends and neighbors and collaborators in ecosystem health.

So, what is Biodiversity and why does it matter? Let’s look at some key points of biodiversity and its role in our landscape and our lives.

From the North Carolina Extension Agency; Biodiversity sustains the natural processes that support all life on earth, known as ecosystem services. According to the Ecological Society of America, healthy ecosystems are needed to provide services that accomplish these functions:

·    Pollinate crops and natural vegetation

·    Disperse seeds

·    Balance agricultural and garden pest populations

·    Regulate disease-carrying organisms

·    Generate soils

·    Cycle and move nutrients

·    Purify the air and water

·    Detoxify and decompose wastes

·    Contribute to climate stability

·    Moderate weather extremes and their impacts including drought and floods

·    Protect streams, river channels, and coastal shores from erosion

 

Everything Belongs to One Another

If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”- “Frances Burnett

As Frances so beautifully and simply wrote, the whole world is a garden. If you take the time to unearth the truth, what you find is indeed we are all connected, not just in our local ecologies, but in the broader whole Earth systems of wellbeing. Healthy soils that are rich and full of minerals mycelia and microorganism grow robust, healthy vegetables, fruits, mushrooms, nuts, and grasses for grazing animals. When we begin to see our native plants as collaborators in our diversity goals it creates a new paradigm of appreciation. Looking at our local ecologies, we begin to see things as having a purpose, Tulip Poplar Trees as host plants for Tiger swallowtail Butterflies, or beetles as pollinators for Paw Paw trees, which are in turn a host to the Zebra Swallowtails. Suddenly each plant or creature has a use, a purpose and a niche in the larger goal of wellness. Habitat for Native bat Species allows populations to return, when our bat populations go up mosquito populations go down. Keeping our ecological balance is essential for the interplay between species, and their roles in the larger picture. We now know that mycelia and trees roots communicate, that there is a deeper fabric at work, and when we create healthy habitats, we nourish everyone downstream, and I mean that both literally and figuratively. Did I mention beauty? Gardens, with pollinator plants, wild natives, vegetables, and flowering trees not only make us healthier they make us happier. Think of this in terms of songbirds, so many of us are bird lovers, but what do those flying flowers need to survive, and thrive?

“Large numbers of caterpillars feeding on native tree leaves are the food source that sustains the nestlings of many bird species. Just consider this: 6,000 to 10,000 caterpillars are needed to successfully raise a single nest of chickadees!” - Charlotte Glen, Extension Agent Agriculture—Horticulture, Chatham County

6,000 to 10,000 caterpillars for one nest of chickadees is a tall order, but our impacts makes a big difference. Just one mature White Oak can support one 500 hundred different species of insects. Plant gardens to support butterflies and bees, and you’ll end up with more songbirds, more birds translate to an increase the Raptor population, who intern, eat small birds and mammals, it could go on and on in both directions of the food web. I find this so exciting and hopeful, let’s ban together and turn our lawns into thriving habitats! We can have a massive impact in just in a small space. Here on our land, I’ve been a witness to some extraordinary miracles, the Great Blue Heron Fishing in our pond, the return of our migrant bird populations, vast numbers of butterflies, pollinators and bees, bats, box turtles, the spice of life and wellness coming home again.

Our Soils Clean Water

Our drinking waters our rivers our oceans, they too are entwined in whole system health, that starts right in our backyards. Diversity of plant life above ground has massive affect below where roots microorganism, and fungi, create soil tilth, literally a filtration system for our water that keeps run-off and excess silt and even chemicals from reaching our stream and oceans. When we first bought our land, it had most of its topsoil stripped away. Every rain was painful as we stood helpless watching it rush though the landscape unheeded, pulling our soil off our mountain in great gouges that looked like wounds. In our first year on the land we built raised berms on contour to catch and slow the water runoff. We also created three ponds to hold the excess from those berms and planted them with diverse seed mixes. Over time water slowed, soil stayed, and with it, diversity began to return. Time and hard work have created a love for wildlife that is hard to explain it feels so immense. Helping our land heal has been akin to a spiritual experience, its hard to say who is healing whom, this work is one of reciprocity. Our ponds are now home to the kingfisher, the Great Blue Heron, Sandpiper, Box turtles, fish, bats dipping for a drink, cattails swaying, dragonflies flashing metallic green, our water has become a home to diverse life. Healing land and the water that flows through it might just be our ticket to healing ourselves. Biodiversity is the key unlocking an incredible word, hope.

At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. – Frances Burnett

“Design in nature is but a concatenation of accidents, culled by natural selection until the result is so beautiful or effective as to seem a miracle of purpose.” ― Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World

 

Where to Start

Biodiversity starts with knowledge. Learning to look at a swath of nature not as a mass of green plants but as individuals with names and purposes is the first step to creating a love for these wonderful species. As you would with a person, give them time, get to know them remain curious and expect wonders. There are stories hidden everywhere in plain sight, it’s shifting our gaze to curiosity and asking good question that gets us better answers. When we can differentiate the faces of our friends in a crowd, we tend to feel at ease, to rest knowing we are not alone. When we begin to unfurl the magical ties between each plant, insect, flower or creature who depend on one another, our own relationship changes, now our friends and their work in this world are everywhere, and so is ours. In any landscape especially our own backyards there is so much opportunity to create habitat for our fauna and flora. More than that there is a choice to stand up for our future and rise to meet it with renewed courage.

 

You Are a Human Animal

We forget that we to are wildlife, that we are a species in our local ecology with an impact and impacted by our area’s lifeforms. We tend to separate ourselves as some construct outside of the natural world observing it.  We have evolved right alongside everything else on this earth, and we are indeed human animals. Seeing ourselves as belonging to our ecology as a participator, co-creator and collaborators within our local biomes is a shift that can fills us with purpose, give us a niche in this world a on a personal level but also in the broader scheme of whole system wellness. With a world-wide mental health crisis hitting us daily on the news, this shift of belonging, of having a place and a purpose can be lifesaving. We don’t have a shortage of spaces to grow food forests, just look at all the lawns and you’ll begin to see our potential for so much goodness.

 

Becoming a Biodiversity Warrior

·        One of the best action steps is to buy local field guides for your area. Finding out what a new plant or insect is called is one of our families’ favorite things to do together, and you’ll find kids are naturally curious about everything! Here are some good one to get started with, National Audubon Society Field Guides and Peterson Field Guides .

 

·        Plant a pollinator garden. Planting perennial pollinator gardens is a good way to stack functions, outside getting your red-light therapy, spending time with kids and exercising all in one. Not to mention free entertainment as you watch your lawn transform into butterfly habitat. Trust me, it’s better than any tv show out there, and you’ll be pulling your friends out to see you gardens every time they come. Check out this list for Native plant nurseries in NC.

 

 

·        Plant Native Gardens. Native plants are species that naturally grow in your region or area having coevolved with interdependence for survival. Native Pants are integral for many species of wildlife, like the monarch who we all know depends on milkweed. There are so many more types of relationships that need support from diverse types of plants. Check with your local extension agency to find a native plant list for your area.

 

·       Buy food from a local regenerative farm. These people are working so hard to right so many wrongs, while growing food to boot. When you buy from a farmer who you know is doing good things, that loop of goodness grows exponentially. These Farmers are actively growing food while simultaneously improving soil and increasing biodiversity. Check out your local farmers market and find a farmer you can trust.

 

·        Volunteering. There are lots of amazing folks working to create habitat or to clean up existing wildlife areas. If you don’t have any green space, there is still so much you can participate in. Joining a group is a wonderful way to find people who have similar interests.

 

Mary