Stepping into nature can be as simple as walking out our back door. Being able to take that step may be an essential part of our future and our hope for survival.
It is a common awareness that many species of insects, birds, and many other animals are in serious decline or have already disappeared. Populations of bees, butterflies and birds are noticeably diminished compared to what they were when we were young. Just look at the reduced number of insect splatters on the car windshield compared to when we were kids.
Many of these vanishing species are part of the natural network on which we humans depend for our own survival. Their disappearance warns us of our own demise. It is a bleak picture, but there is a serious solution that is right out our back door.
A surprising and simple solution was just put forth by naturalist Douglas Tallamy in his most recent book, “Nature’s Best Hope.” Tallamy explains how loss of their habitat and sustaining food sources is a key factor in the disappearance of insects and other animals. Natural areas in places such as national parks are simply inadequate to provide suitable habitat to support a sustainable population of bees, butterflies and birds.
The good news is that outside those national parks are millions of acres of green lawns that can be converted into sustaining habitat the parks are not able to provide. Millions of acres of ecologically barren lawns are easily available if we replace the turf in our yards with native plants. Rather than our going out in search of natural spaces for our own enjoyment, we bring nature to us. We also bring back the bees, butterflies and birds.
Tallamy and his research students point out that cultivars are no good substitute for native plants. Cultivars, those strange and attractive plants we buy at nurseries, may be pleasing to us, but they are more like fast food for bees and butterflies. Filling but not nourishing.
Native plants can be equally as lovely as cultivars. Natives also provide a more appealing and nutritious option for caterpillars that eat the plants and for the insects that feast on the pollen and nectar. The plants and insects have evolved over millions of years to offer one another their best option. Birds, in turn, feast on the insects and require those bugs to feed their young.
We have learned to see green lawns as culturally appealing to us, but they are actually an ecological wasteland. Many lawns in Bryn Mawr have already been purposefully abandoned and many neighbors have created native parkland in their own yards.
Bees, butterflies and birds are happier and better able to survive because of this conversion. So are those neighbors happier who only have to step outside their door to be enveloped by a natural setting. It’s a setting in which everyone also has a better chance to survive.