Ok, But What Can I Do? (Part 1: Preface)
Information and Inspiration towards Nature-Based Land Stewardship Perspectives and Practices
(Image source: Photo by Anne LaForti)
Preface
“The living world is a unique and spectacular marvel. Trillions of individuals and millions of kinds of plants and animals, dazzling in their variety and richness, working together to benefit from the energy of the sun and the minerals of the earth; leading lives that interlock in such a way that they sustain each other. We rely entirely on this finely tuned life-support machine, and it relies on its biodiversity to run smoothly. Yet the way we humans live on earth now is sending biodiversity into a decline.”
- David Attenburgough, A Life on Our Planet
Climate change is coming, but it has also already arrived. Biodiversity is declining and our planet spins out as humans continue to drain and consume its resources. According to NASA and NOAA analysis, approximately 2% of the landmass of the contiguous 48 states is turf grass -- making it the single largest irrigated crop in the US (Milesi et. al., 2005), that’s 38,400,000 acres of lawn, an area just a bit larger than the state of Georgia. These lawns include the yards of private homeowners, university and schoolyards, municipal parks, golf courses, and the land around businesses, warehouses, and factories. If each of these land managers saw themselves as land stewards, they could make better land management decisions for the health of the land, and those who inhabit it.
When land stewards work to help heal the microbial communities in the soil, they can create conditions conducive to life in the foundational layer (literally and figuratively) of the planet.
Homeowners, land managers, and farmers are using toxic chemicals to combat pests and weeds, using damaging tillage to break up capped and compacted soils (which releases CO2 into the atmosphere), and are relying on synthetic fertilizers to prop up plant growth in sterilized soils. These and other land management practices are harming all the life that resides in that local ecosystem -- including humans. If land managers looked at their land management practices through a nature-based lens, they could take action to reverse the damage to the land they manage and help to regenerate the ecosystem around them. Instead of wondering what to do, they could design ways to impact their land that mimic how nature meets these same needs for healing and regeneration.
This is an opportunity to do something to change the trajectory of even a tiny piece of this planet. Many of us have some property that we have some sort of “control” over, as far as management practice decisions are concerned. So we must start where we can. Each of us is uniquely positioned to improve our hyper-local ecosystems by impacting the transition of management practices to a more regenerative and holistic model. We can each find a way to step away from land degeneration and turn our land management practices towards healing the land by looking at the spaces we exist within through a nature-based lens. Nature has been adapting to varying conditions of planet Earth over millennia, continually evolving to best suit the conditions and thriving within them. Perhaps we can check in with nature, and find out how 3.8 billion years of ingenious evolution can give us some clues on how to live and how to heal the land within an ever-changing context.
If you don’t have land you personally manage, there are myriad ways you too impact the ecosystems of your local community, be it urban, suburban, or rural. By acting in support of your local community land stewardship projects, you can be an impact multiplier. Each of us is in a unique and powerful position to help heal or harm the land and the creatures on it, based on the design decisions we choose to implement. By healing the land, we can heal our local ecosystem at the same time, reversing the impacts of climate change while also helping to sink carbon into the soil long-term. This book is written from the perspective of hope.
The nature-based lens I share here is meant to be an approachable, easy-to-understand way to see the world. By looking at how natural systems accomplish functions of regeneration, and asking “How might nature solve this problem?” we can view our own opportunities from a planetary health perspective. As you join me to explore the stories shared in this book, I ask that you consider how you might aim more closely, in your own way, to heal the land you impact.
This is the preface for a manuscript I drafted for the final project of my Biomimicry master’s degree. I feel it could help you to understand the impact that each of us can have on our hyper-local ecosystems as we step toward stewardship practices that heal the soil.
— Anne LaForti —
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