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Fall 2004
Last week I heard someone mourning the loss of a tree. On her daily walk through the neighborhood, she had suddenly noticed the absence of shade. A brightness shocked her in the place where cool had previously reigned. The grand old elm, estimated to be 260 years old, more than seven stories tall, and nearly five feet across, was likely the oldest and largest on Chicago's North Shore. My acquaintance spoke of her dismay, her feelings of loss.
Why do we care? That is the question. It's a question asked with new urgency by people such as Dr. Carol Saunders at Brookfield Zoo, who is helping to establish the discipline of conservation psychology. Children innately seem to care about animals, for instance. Perhaps there is an inchoate recognition of kinship with the creatures of the earth that seems to recede as culture overtakes nature in our experience. But can we verify our hunches? And why do we care whether majestic trees live or die? Is it only due to our consummate self-interest — in the shade, the fuel, or the food they provide? Or is there a deeply human capacity to love and take care of creatures other than ourselves? If so, is that a capacity that we might cultivate? Dave Aftandilian takes a look at questions being asked and answered in his article on conservation psychology.
When that great elm took root, Native Americans roamed these lands. They were hunters and gatherers, thanking nature for its abundance, shaping the land through fires and, later, crops. Our wild lands were lands with people, touched by them and permeating their culture. Today, some large tracts remain for us to roam across the landscape — Middlefork Savanna, Glacial Park, and Rollins Savanna, to name but three profiled in this issue.
For Native Americans, rituals accompanied the cycles of life and death, a way to mark loss and give thanks. "The Lifeboat, the Milk Bottle, and the Middle Passage" recounts the harmonic convergence of people restoring the land — a modern ritual of making amends and giving thanks — and reconnecting with a buried cultural past. Joan Monnig and her son Marlow, pulling garlic mustard at Harms Woods in the photo above, are part of that story of restoration and reconnection. Exploring nature and culture — that's Chicago Wilderness.
Now that we live in cities and suburbs, our connection with the land and with creatures other than fellow humans has become more tenuous. Forces seek to estrange us from our roots in nature. We cherish the single tree, not seeing it as part of a former or current ecosystem, not quite seeing it as interdependent with us. Conservation psychology is helping us rediscover our place in the world and our right relationship with the land. We're not aliens on this planet. Immigrants, Native Americans, and Nature — they make up the united states of America. We have a shared past here. We belong here. And we care.
Debra Shore may
be reached at editor@chicagowildernessmag.org.
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