Reconciliation ecology for the St. Louis River?

Earlier today I drove past a field of corn. The plants weren't much more than knee high. That made it easy for me to notice the dozen or two sandhill cranes feeding in scattered flocks in the field. When we first moved into this area, more than twenty years ago, crane sightings were fewer and less frequent. I'm encouraged that there seem to be more to see almost every year. That's today's first of three bits of good news.

On Twitter this morning, I came across another piece of what I consider today's second bit of good news. I had not known there's field called reconciliation ecology, which "studies ways to encourage biodiversity in human-dominated ecosystems," but I do now, and it's not the same as restoration ecology or ecological resilience. Over the years, I've watched the planning and community development sectors become more sophisticated about the need for and benefits of mixed used developments as a means of creating neighborhoods and community (and getting people out of their cars). Nature doesn't seem interested in supporting monoculture and if we don't improve how we emulate nature (biomimicry) more often and in better ways, nature will do just fine without us. Meanwhile, since now more than half of humans live in urban areas, reconciliation ecology seems essential.

St. Louis River, reconciliation ecology?

Photo by J. Harrington

A third bit of good news involves my recent discovery, thanks to Sheila Packa's blog [see sidebar], of the One River, Many Stories web site about the St. Louis River. How the state of Minnesota can reconcile allowing the proposed PolyMet NorthMet mine discharges to the St. Louis watershed, in light of the beneficial uses the river is slowly regaining after its past abuses, is a source of befuddlement to me. I wish every river in Minnesota received the kind of attention the St. Louis is getting. That's a goal we Minnesotans could, and should, work toward. I have my doubts about how well reconciliation ecology involving mining will work out. The track record is very poor to date.

I Hear a River thro’ the Valley Wander

By Trumbull Stickney

I hear a river thro’ the valley wander

Whose water runs, the song alone remaining.

A rainbow stands and summer passes under.

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Community: open or closed? #phenology

A pair of Baltimore orioles lives somewhere in the neighborhood. They were observed, briefly, at the nectar feeder yesterday. This year's flock of rowdy grosbeaks appears to have driven them away. Last year we had at least one oriole pair that were regular visitors. Last year we had fewer grosbeaks. Coincidence? (As I was writing the next paragraph, an oriole returned to the feeder. Hope springs eternal.)

back yard "invaded" by a bull thistle

Photo by J. Harrington

The bull thistle we noticed in back hasn't yet bloomed. I need to work on pulling it sometime this week. I'd take the chain saw to it but that would leave the tap root and, from what I've read, it would then be back next year. I'll try the planting spade to dig it out. If I had noticed it sooner, it would have been the perfect excuse to get the hori hori I've had my eye on, but it's way beyond that stage of growth. Of course, if I follow what seems to be the perspective of the author of The New Wild, I could try benign neglect as a management approach. I'm about half way through the book on"why invasive species will be nature's salvation" and have thoroughly confirmed my bias that we humans don't really know what we're doing when we try to manage nature.

Black-eyed Susans behind feral oregano

Photo by J. Harrington

An example right here at home comes from my observation that none of this year's, or last year's, plantings of prairie flowers seem to have survived on the sandy side hill, just as almost none of the wildflower seeds we've sown over the years have germinated and grown. The one exception is (are?) the Black-eyed Susan seeds the Better Half collected and scattered last year. We now have a number of yellow splotches adding color to the pale lilac feral oregano that's blooming and continues to take over much of the North and East sides of the side hill.

Leopold uses broad and expansive definitions of "community" as he writes of a land ethic. This seems to me to imply that a community is not a closed system. That, in turn, raises some interesting considerations about what we mean by native, indigenous, invasive, naturalized and, even, how to think about what a bioregion is. Can we have communities that aren't parochial, that aren't hostile to invasive others? Can we create a culture that isn't based on colonialism and doesn't depend on global capitalism? As Rodney King said "Can we all get along?"

The People of the Other Village

By Thomas Lux

hate the people of this village

and would nail our hats

to our heads for refusing in their presence to remove them

or staple our hands to our foreheads

for refusing to salute them

if we did not hurt them first: mail them packages of rats,

mix their flour at night with broken glass.

We do this, they do that.

They peel the larynx from one of our brothers’ throats.

We devein one of their sisters.

The quicksand pits they built were good.

Our amputation teams were better.

We trained some birds to steal their wheat.

They sent to us exploding ambassadors of peace.

They do this, we do that.

We canceled our sheep imports.

They no longer bought our blankets.

We mocked their greatest poet

and when that had no effect

we parodied the way they dance

which did cause pain, so they, in turn, said our God

was leprous, hairless.

We do this, they do that.

Ten thousand (10,000) years, ten thousand

(10,000) brutal, beautiful years.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.