|
Summer
1999
[TEXT ARCHIVE WEB-PUBLISHED MARCH 2002.
ORIGINAL PRINT PUBLICATION DATE: SUMMER 1999.]
Nature
That Depends on People
The
largest breeding colony of black-crowned night herons in
the Upper Midwest is in the Calumet region of Chicago Wilderness.
This heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) is an endangered
bird in the state of Illinois because so much of the wetland
habitat it requires has become poor for the herons or has
disappeared altogether. So what are they doing in Chicago
— within easy reach of eight million people?
From
Ohio to Iowa, from Missouri to Minnesota, the rural Corn
Belt has lost its vast prairies or prairie groves. We near
Chicago also have transformed the landscape — in building
homes and industry, transportation systems and the businesses
to serve us. But visionary thinkers and planners, architects
and social workers pushed to create the forest preserve
districts and to acquire open lands. We the people have
provided refugia for plants and animals, including many
species on the edge of extinction; they no longer thrive
in the corn and soybeans of the countryside. Only people
destroy nature; but only people save it.
The
Dunes-Calumet Region, part of a once-vast complex of marshes,
wet prairies, and sedge meadows, was also once home to the
world's largest oil refinery and largest steel mill. Today
its more than 50 fragmented natural sites harbor significant
inventories of plants, animals, butterflies, amphibians,
and fish, including several federally endangered species
such as the Karner blue butterfly, the Indiana bat, and
Pitcher's thistle. The Calumet region also receives the
greatest concentration of migratory land and water birds
in the Midwest. They settle down for a rest here, tired
after flying north over all those beans. More than 860,000
people also inhabit this area that is struggling to overcome
the industrial legacy of contaminated groundwater, brownfields,
and economic stagnation. People and nature.
The
Calumet region, in largish microcosm, is one locale where
committed citizens are working to restore economic health
and ecological health to their communities. Nature and human
needs are coming together in Chicago Wilderness.
Indeed,
in the central paradox of Chicago Wilderness lies our best
hope for the future of our people and our nature. Today,
visionaries and planners, artists and poets, citizen scientists
and plain folks seek to live in healthy, sustainable communities
for themselves and for the other species with which we share
a common home.This issue of Chicago WILDERNESS features
articles on wetlands and some of the creatures that you
may find there. Now that it's summer, why not play in some
muck, sit on a log and watch the animals come to drink at
a woodland pond, or prowl a grassy savanna in the dew of
daybreak? It's habitat for all of us. Like the frogs and
orioles, enjoy Chicago Wilderness this summer. It's here
because of you.
Debra
Shore may be reached at editor@chicagowildernessmag.org.
|
