Learn how to use your yard to save nature's ecosystems
The Prospect Heights Natural Resources Commission and the Prospect Heights Public Library are co-sponsoring the program "Nature's Best Hope" from 7-8:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19.
The program will be presented by author, educator, researcher and renowned naturalist Dr. Doug Tallamy.
Recent headlines about global insect declines and 3 billion fewer birds in North America are a bleak reality check about how ineffective our current landscape designs have been at sustaining the plants and animals that sustain us. Such losses are not an option if we wish to continue our current standard of living on planet Earth.
The good news is that none of this is inevitable.
Dr. Tallamy will discuss simple steps that each of us can - and must - take to reverse declining biodiversity, and he will explain why we are nature's best hope.
To create landscapes that enhance local ecosystems rather than degrade them, we just need to add the native plant communities that sustain food webs, sequester carbon, maintain diverse native bee communities, and manage our watersheds.
Homegrown National Park is a term coined by Tallamy and is the key to a call-to-action.
"Our national parks, no matter how grand in scale, are too small and separated from one another to preserve species to the levels needed. Thus, the concept for Homegrown National Park, a bottom-up call-to-action to restore habitat where we live and work, and, to a lesser extent, where we farm and graze, is extending national parks to our yards and communities."
This approach to conservation will empower you to play a significant role in the future of the natural world.
Tallamy is a professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has wrote 103 research publications and has taught insect-related courses for 40 years. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities.
The program is free, but registration is required by visiting www.phpl.info. The program will place virtually through the library's Zoom platform.
Instructions for logging into the program will be emailed to registrants on the day of the program. Nature Speaks is a partnership between Prospect Heights Natural Resources Commission and the Prospect Heights Public Library.
Additional information about the commission's numerous native prairie restorations and other activities can be found at www.phnrc.com.