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Saving Nature in Urban Areas – guest post by Karin DeLaitsch
I’m always interested in seeking new places to visit. For me, new surroundings stimulate new ideas to bring home. This year’s travels were no exception. Each contained a populated urban area with a distinctly different approach to connecting people with nature and that got me thinking…
My winter get-away led me to the southwestern region of the US where it’s a short drive to escape the populous Phoenix metro area and relax in the vast expanse of the Sonoran desert. Whether hiking or biking, one can still find solitude to quietly observe a large variety of flora and fauna in an undisturbed setting. A fantastic means to let nature stimulate a personal sense of well-being.
In spring, I ventured to Spain’s Andalusia region to breathe in the temperate Mediterranean climate. I immediately fell in love with the relaxing, social atmosphere created by neighborhood plazas where residents on foot gathered daily (and I mean, daily) to converse among immaculate gardens and fountains surrounded by trees. Cities like Seville have created a wonderful way to weave human-nature connectivity into an urban way of life. (more…)
A Piedmont Christmas Tree Farm
I grew up on 110 acres in Harford County, Maryland. In the 1960s, forty acres of our farm was taken by eminent domain for the construction of Interstate I-95. We were devastated by that event. (More on that part of the story can be found in the prologue of the book Saving the Places We Love).
To block out the sight and the sound of the highway, we planted 30,000 evergreen trees – a very slow-growing sound barrier. Six years later, (more…)
When Parking Lots Help To Restore Our World
When you go shopping next, check out the parking lots. How are they designed? Do they just flush all the rainfall right into a storm drain which then empties directly into a stream or lake? Or do they capture the water and allow it to filter back into the ground to recharge the groundwater table and restore our streams?
I recently visited (more…)
Defeating the Frederick Incinerator – Guest post by Don West
![incinerator2large[1]](https://savingtheplaces.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/incinerator2large1.jpg)
The (Frederick) Board of County Commissioners struck down plans Thursday for a regional waste-to-energy incinerator … by canceling the contract and related permits.“ Frederick News Post Friday, November 21, 2014
How on earth did we get to this point, when as recently as April 2014, both Carroll and Frederick Counties were under contract to build this 1500 ton per day incinerator and all the necessary permits had been issued?
Many people worked (more…)
A Puerto Rican Coral Island – guest post by Lori Lilly
Culebra is an 11.6 square mile island located off of the northeast coast of Puerto Rico. It is home to 1,900 residents, beautiful coral reefs and a robust tourist economy. It is a somewhat harrowing yet stunning plane ride from the main island to this priority coral reef protection area. My first visit to Culebra was with my family in 2013 where we had a great time touring the island in our Jerry’s Jeep (“It’s not a heap, it’s a Jerry’s Jeep!”) and snorkeling off of the white sand beaches. We collectively, quite simply, fell in love with Culebra.
My second trip to Culebra in 2014 was entirely different. I was contracted by (more…)
Threats to the Blue Ridge Mountains – guest post by Mark Southerland
Eight acres on the south side of Sugar Mountain in western North Carolina, remain in my family from the first permanent Scotch-Irish (and Welsh) settlement of the mountain by my ancestor Martin Banner and his brothers in 1848. Our family, as well as our adjacent relatives, retain most of the land in its natural state of forest and streams. As a result the biodiversity of the land remains such that 13 species of salamander can be found on it, enough for me to complete a doctoral dissertation on their communities. (Photo of salamander on tree -Plethodon jordani). This homestead remains our connection to the natural and cultural history of one of the most beautiful regions in the United States, the southern Blue Ridge mountains.
The forces threatening this and other southern Appalachian ecosystems include (more…)
A Call to Action – Some easy first steps
I am regularly asked about concrete steps that we can all take to help save the places we love. I have offered strategies for a specific campaign in one of the early blog posts. But there are things we can all do that will help each of our favorite places, the whole country, and planet. Here are a few of the steps to take. If we all did them it would make a difference. So let’s start in our backyards and then make the effort to encourage others to take these steps as well. (more…)
Sounds of our Special Places – guest post by Kathy Bell Tillman
![artmax_1294[1]](https://savingtheplaces.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/artmax_12941.jpg)
Recently, The Sun magazine had an interview with Bernie Krause, who has spent years recording the collective sounds of nonhuman living things (called biophony) and nonbiological natural sounds of the earth processes such as waterfalls and cracking ice (called geophony) in places all around the world. Krause challenges us to be present in nature by actively listening to the sounds around us as we venture out in the natural world.
I live near Lake Elkhorn in Columbia, Maryland, and I take daily walks around the lake. Since reading the Krause interview, I have been (more…)
Why Should We Save The Bay?
I spent a day this week with three other men and a waterman, Capt. John Van Alstine, out on his Hooper’s Island style workboat tonging for oysters and trotlining for crabs. Even though the crabs and oyster were not abundant, it was a great way to spend a day out of the office.
Halfway through the day, one of my landlubber colleagues, Mark, asked me, “Why do we continue to spend so much money on trying to save the Chesapeake Bay? Isn’t its decline just a natural result of population growth and progress?” (more…)
Saving The Places 