Ode to Biodiversity, by Jean Ponzi
BIODIVERSITY
You KNOW what it is:
PLANTS BIRDS WORMS ROCKS
LVING SYSTEMS that CLEAN – COOL – FEED – HEAL (blah-blah-blah)
and BEAUTIFY our world
It’s also these three things:
Daily life of all us St. Louisans
An obscure 19th century poet’s famous sonnet
DIRT under our fingernails
Focus FIRST on DAILY LIFE
This girl, Keesha. Walking.
Picture our/YOUR DAILY LIFE:
1. Waking up, getting ready
2. How you get wherever you’re going
3. What you do when you get there
4. What you do to wind down your day
Now stretch that view OUT
AROUND OUR REGION
The COMBINED STATISTICAL AREA of STL:
- 16 Counties MO – 8 Counties IL – PLUS St. Louis City
- 9 million humans
- 8,500 square miles – 3% water, rest is land
We get where we’re going – ever feel this? Or maybe you ride the bus or rail or get to pedal – you maybe even FLY
If you’re in your car, do you ever think about that BERM OF PLANTS on the side of the highway? How THAT BERM is contributing to BIODIVERSITY?
BIO = HUHHH???????
So all those – ALL OF US – COMMUTERS – in a hurry to get WHERE?
INTO BUILDINGS
U.S. Green Building Council says we spend 90% OF OUR LIVES INSIDE BUILDINGS!!! INSIDE!!! That doesn’t count our time inside CARS.
Sealed off from the “outside world” – in “OUR WORLD” – what kind of world of OUR MAKING?
Hey! There’s more to being a carbon-based organism!
Scientists estimate 1.9 million species have been described – PLUS 100 million (especially plants) NOT EVEN DISCOVERED YET
St. Louis – typical of EARTH – is home to a vast diversity of species – of which – and WITH WHICH – WE ARE ONE!
And we LOVE a LOT of the world around us! We hike, fish, make out, ramble, ride! We love our PARKS: our Forest gem – our Tower Grove beauty – Fairgrounds — Carondelet – Riverview – O’Fallon – playing fields – pocket parks
108 City Parks, in a city of only 62 square miles, 3,000 CITY PARK ACRES!
St. Louis County maintains more than 40 parks. They are nature preserves, playgrounds, fishing holes, trail systems. St. Louis County Park System is the biggest in the state: over 12,000 acres including 8,000 acres of WOODLANDS.
This is Creve Coeur: 2,114 acres! St. Louis County Parks ROCK!
PLUS State Parks: 19 – like this nearest, dear one: Castlewood! We have one of the best state park systems in the NATION: Glades, prairies, blue streams, lakes – even a reclaimed dioxin field!!! BUT – are PARKS part of ALL our DAILY LIVES??
This is a playground, a daily scene, for kids in a school near where I work in a Garden. Kids who play here are kids whose parents love them, whose teachers read with them – they are COOL and CARED FOR kids. But THIS is part of their outdoor time.
Another scene from daily life: from those precious hours AFTER WORKING!
Non-productive water sucking chemical-guzzling monoculture – that YOU have to WORK FOR. Where the heck did this scene come from?
England and France – Royalty – Landed Aristocracy of the past rooted this dubious legacy. And we have somehow bought and toed the line that manicured, straight-lined tidy carpets are an Indicator of QUALITY OF LIFE. For whom? For us? It’s for sure a QUALITY-NOT for birds or bugs or soil organisms!
Lifeless! Unproductive! and
BORING BORING BORING
What would SHE think of all this?
Here we get our 19th century minor poet’s sonnet-gift. She called that tidy-grass boring neatness STORIED POMP: “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp … I lift my lamp beside the GOLDEN DOOR of BIODIVERSITY!!!
Enter now the NATIVE PLANT FANS! Enter now the HUMAN-NATURE MATCHMAKERS! The more diverse our everyday landscapes, the more we get outside to learn – play – eat – dance – WORK – LOVE and LIVE with our natural relatives: Bugs, Birds, Ants, Microbes, Oaks, Monarchs – WHAT A COMMUNITY!
Do our personal landscapes reflect our Great St. Louis Biodiversity Community?
Could more of our landscapes look like this complex: canopy layers, understory trees, native shrubs and wildflowers – inviting pollinators and even producing LOCAL LUNCH . . .
This looks like WORK – but work is GOOD: determination, perseverance, creativity, cooperation! Figuring stuff out together! Bettering a place together!
However it looks in your daily life, ask: HOW can my NEIGHBORS and I make this place more lively, better?
Now think about Dirty Fingernails. They are a magical way to MAKE TIME.
When a human being gets dirt in our nails, we are out in nature – in Natural Time. TIME FLOWS TO, AROUND and THROUGH US!
In a garden, cleaning up a river – do this with family, friends, even STRANGERS – and FEEL how TIME increases for YOU!
Feel how we are one big community? Many humans, YES, and LOTS of interesting creatures too. Great spaces, OUR PLACES: ECO-LOGIC is all about our RELATIONSHIPS IN PLACE. Will we commit to making our NATURAL wealth accessible to ALL our neighbors . . . ?
The City of St. Louis is taking up these questions! We are not alone among Earth’s Cities: here is Seoul, South Korea, where the Cheonggyecheon River was buried in concrete and now flows as a 7-mile nature park, the cool jewel of their city center. We are learning from our neighbors in Milwaukee, Portland, Singapore, Phoenix. RE-NATURING to grow civic VALUE!
Biodiversity is: VIBANT – COLORFUL – RESILIENT – SUPPORTIVE – CONNECTED – LIVELY – VALUABLE
Landscapes of unique individuals that COMPLEMENT and STRENGTHEN the WHOLE. How could quality of life be increased – EVERYDAY – FOR ALL – and be SUSTAINED – in a BiodiverseCity? ST. LOUIS!!!
Hearty thanks to Sheila Voss, whose vision this BiodiverseCity STL paean paraphrases.
