Handling the Future
Photos by Dave Jagodzinski; Words by Stephen Packard; Work by volunteers everywhere.

n suburban back yards, on the fire escapes of city six-flats, and among advancing buckthorns in untended wilds, fall finds people tinkering with rare seed. Hundreds of thousands of live embryos filter through the fingers of people, who are often lost in thought about something else. It’s peaceful work. A time to meditate, while little packages of the future are prepared for broadcast in wildlands under restoration.

See that homemade box with a screen bottom? That’s become a standard item at these events. Blocks of wood, sandpaper, Waring blenders, jury-rigged leaf mulchers, and all those bags filled with the product of seed foragers who scour the countryside for the dwindling islands of ancient nature, where the rare seed lurks. A seed source tucked between a highway and a railroad track; it may be cement next year.

These are the plants that had been dying out. These are the plants of the ecosystems that rare animals depend on. If the ancient plants come back, then the animals—from butterflies and beetles to hummingbirds and Cooper’s hawks—can continue this journey, on this planet, with us. Thanks to this work, in scores of sites throughout the region, the ancient natural ecosystem is coming back.

The prairies to grow from these seeds, with our help, will take the place of brush. The woodland understories they restore will crowd out invasive buckthorn and box elder (given that these restoration areas get occasional fire and some predation on the deer). Some individual plants will die in the competition with these seeds, and some will live because these seeds are planted.

In "Pets? Pests? or Just Wild?", Jerry Sullivan encourages our natural love and compassion for animals to reach a higher plane. Yes, love the individual, and also love the species, the community, the habitat. Yes, love our families, and ethnic groups, and religious communities, and at the same time love all humankind. We can do that. Yes, love America, and at the same time be an impassioned patriot of the planet.

Seed stewards have taken that next step for the local wilds. Yes, they can love individual plants. They also love whole and healthy woods, wetlands, and prairies. The evolving discipline of conservation biology challenges our emotions and ethics. Sometimes there must be tradeoffs. Individuals will be lost to predation, fire, flood, hail, drought, and competition. Yes, protect those individuals when we can, but don’t close off the natural processes on which the larger communities depend. Yes, plant the seeds that will out-compete some other seeds. Yes, be stewards of the future. The emerging land ethic of Chicago Wilderness.

Would you or someone you know like to help gather the seeds of orchids, oaks, and bluestems — and thus, indirectly, the seeds of butterflies, tadpoles, and flying squirrels? Work parties are scheduled every weekend this fall — see the Illinois Chapter of the Nature Conservancy's Stewardship Calendar.

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