Conservation at Home to Prevent Biodiversity Loss

"It is no accident that the planet's stability has wavered just as its biodiversity has declined - the two things are bound together. To restore stability to our planet, therefore, we must restore its biodiversity, the very thing we have removed. It is the only way out of this crisis that we ourselves have created. We must rewild the world!"    -- David Attenborough in A Life on Our Planet


I have seen a virtual presentation twice by Douglas W. Tallamy. It was so good I had to see it again. I am looking at two of his books:

Bringing Nature Home and

Nature's Best Hope

According to Tallamy, if we are responsible for any piece of land, we can contribute to conservation. If we are not, we can help others who are. Most of the land in the U.S. is privately owned, so it is up to us. Some key points:

* Caterpillars are essential to ecosystems, especially for bird populations. We don't want to kill them; we want to attract them. (If we see evidence of feeding, that is success!)

* Native plants that caterpillars feed on tend to be specialized.

* Keystone species like oaks and elms are especially important.

* Leaf litter below plants where caterpillars feed is important as a safe place for them to fall.

* Too many other plants on a piece of land can prevent the presence of native plants, even if they are not invasive.

* Pollinators depend on specific native plants.

* We can find a list of native plants for our area at www.nwf.org/NativePlantFinder.



For me, this is a work in progress in our little yard, and it is also a source of inner conflict when I contemplate the removal of a plant that is not native, but provides shade to save energy or some other benefit. Sometimes it is not a simple decision. But I want to keep learning.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Planetary Boundaries

Image
Hello, I am an ordinary citizen of the world, with an interest in starting a forum for others interested in environmental stewardship. Here is what inspired me. In a book I am currently reading, "A Life on Our Planet" by David Attenborough, I ran across this graphic. Has anyone else seen this before? When I search online, I see other versions of the model too.  Attenborough refers to a team of earth system scientists who have named nine different boundaries that determine whether we can continue to live sustainably on our planet. They came up with a threshold beyond which sustainability is doubtful. It may be difficult to read from the photo I have inserted here, but the nine areas are climate change, ocean acidification, chemical pollution, fertilizer use, freshwater withdrawal, land conversion, biodiversity loss, air pollution, and ozone layer depletion. The dark shading shows those of the nine that have been measured in a quantifiable way. The dark ring is the threshold. ...
Read more

Spring into Action

This is the season when it is easiest to enjoy signs of life just beginning to appear. There is so much to fill the senses. The desire to do what I can to protect all the life within my realm of influence is strong, a force that drives me. The power to affect my little corner of the world - the soil, the water down the way, the way food is produced that I bring in, how our household’s waste is  managed, how resources of all kinds are used and conserved, is uppermost in my mind.  I feel the responsibility, being part of the boom, the population explosion that has helped to push the carrying capacity of our world closer to its limit. I wish I was exaggerating.  The world needs all capable hands on deck. In big and small ways, the issues stemming from the demands we have made of our planet, need to be addressed or our troubles will increase. There will be more conflict over resources of the most basic kind, more disease, more damage from natural disasters, more refugees from...
Read more