We love being in our habitat garden, and it creates a welcoming place for wildlife.
But we have to look beyond our yards, too, if we want to leave a living planet to future generations of people and wildlife.
We can’t just sit and enjoy our own yards. We have to take action in the world beyond our yards!
Below are some ways we’re trying to make a difference.
Join organizations
We enjoy being a part of a community of like-minded people, so we support and participate in organizations such as Wild Ones. We also financially support a number of other environment-related organizations. This is a powerful way to spread our influence in the world.
In the community
We need sustainable, intelligent global and national solutions to our many habitat and biodiversity challenges, but it’s often easiest (and perhaps most effective) to take action in our own local community.
For example, in our community we’ve noticed that more and more large trees are being cut down and replaced with small, ornamental non-native trees — or even lawn — or worse, hardscaping or swimming pools, which permanently (in a human scale) destroy the soil! (At the very least, individuals and institutions could leave the dead trunk as a snag.)
And there are other problems, such as non-native invasive plants everywhere! Spread the word! Have thoughtful conversations with fellow community members!
Community science
One of the ways we make a difference beyond our yard is to participate in community science projects.
We describe our favorite community science projects as well as some of our data, but there are lots of other projects, too. The key is finding the one that suits our own interests and lifestyle.
We monitor birds, butterflies, fireflies, and other creatures. Not only are we contributing to knowledge that will enhance conservation efforts, but we have found that we benefit by becoming much more observant and so enjoying life in our yard even more.
Yard signs
We spread the word to passers-by with yard signs we’ve purchased from various organizations. Some, such as the National Wildlife Federation sign, require that you first certify your yard; others have no requirements.
You’re also welcome to download and display any of the signs I’ve designed. We have signs about bird and pollinator conservation, about other underappreciated or maligned beneficial creatures, about native plants, about landscape design, and others.
Learning more
One of the most important things we can do is to learn more about habitat issues so that we can intelligently choose the most impactful things to do.
We list some core resources that can give you a good overall picture of how to increase habitat in our yards and in our communities.
Plants are important! We have plant books, plant web resources, and videos.
And we need to know more about wildlife, so we have books, wildlife web resources, and videos on creatures. And, of course, apps!
Resources
- Wild Ones:
- Sample native planting ordinance – and related resources
- Humane Gardener:
- Butterflies: 1; Bullies: 0 – How HOA rules changed to be more habitat-friendly
- Nature Conservancy’s Cool Green Science:
- Bald eagles and the unfortunate power of forgetting – the “shifting baseline syndrome” goes both ways!
- Washington Post:
- Why you should tell your children about vanishing fireflies – shifting baselines
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds:
- Yale Environment 360:
- Wild Seed Project:
- David Suzuki Foundation:
Seniors taking action!
- Third Act:
- The Third Act organization was founded by climate activist Bill McKibben
- New York Times:
- Gray is Green:
- This organization is for older Americans creating a green legacy – Sign up for their excellent free newsletter
- Roman Krznaric:
- The Good Ancestor – “This is the book our children’s children will thank us for reading.”
Reflections
At the individual level, we face two significant psychological barriers.
First, we find it difficult to fully grasp the enormity of living at a time when we are destroying the natural systems on which all life (and the global economy) depends. Somehow that reality does not seem real.
Second, we are not able to respond to threats that are remote in time and space.
For example, I might believe that future generations are threatened as certainly as a child on a railroad track in front of a speeding train. For that child, I might risk my life. For future generations, I find it difficult to even forgo comforts.
~ Dick Roy, founder of Northwest Earth Institute (now EcoChallenge.org), referring to climate change, but the concept applies to changing our landscaping practices, too.)
The worst thing that will probably happen — in fact is already well underway — is not energy depletion, economic collapse, conventional war, or the expansion of totalitarian governments. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired in a few generations. The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.
~ E. O. Wilson
In my culture, a warrior is not someone who is motivated by fear or power, but someone called by love…. Let us ask each other, what do you love too much to lose? Listen. How does love call to you?
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, SUNY Distinguished Teacher of Environmental Biology, author of Braiding Sweetgrass
You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
~ Dr. Jane Goodall
Real change will happen only when we fall in love with our planet. Only love can show us how to live in harmony with nature and with each other and save us from the devastating effects of environmental destruction and climate change.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist teacher, Love Letter to the Earth
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not!
~ Dr. Seuss, The Lorax
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
~ Robert F. Kennedy
Excerpt from the poem: Hieroglyphic Highway
… it’s 3:23 in the morning
and I can’t sleep
because my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the earth was unraveling? …
~ Drew Dellinger
Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act.
~ Albert Einstein
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. … The time is always ripe to do right.
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.
~ Albert Schweitzer, theologian/physician/musician and Nobel Prize winner
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
~ Buckminster Fuller
The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.
~ Mahatma Gandhi
It always seems impossible until it gets done.
~ Nelson Mandela