This map may make you feel better about the state of the planet
Here ’ s where nature is , in fact , healing .
Benji Jones
NEWS
About 100 miles west of Chicago , Illinois , a tallgrass prairie teems with life . Here in this 3,800-acre piece of land , you can walk among brightly coloured fields of wildflowers , hear the song of cerulean warblers and the hoot of short-eared owls , and , if you ’ re lucky , glimpse rare box turtles .
It wasn ’ t always this way . Over the past two centuries , the Prairie State lost all but about
0.01 percent of its original prairie . This particular region , now known as the Nachusa Grasslands , was covered in part by neat rows of corn and soy , and that left little habitat for
monarch butterflies , bison , or any of the thousands of plants and animals that depend on prairie ecosystems .
That started to change in the 1980s , when a crew of volunteers and scientists began reviving the land — planting seeds , carrying out controlled burns , and reintroducing native species . The ecosystem bounced back , and today , the Nachusa Grasslands are home to 180 species of native birds , more than 700 species of plants , and a small herd of bison .
In an age of extinction and climate change , you don ’ t often hear this kind of success story . Yet the Nachusa Grasslands of the world can help people find hope that the Earth isn ’ t doomed .
Last summer , Thomas Crowther , an ecologist at ETH Zurich , launched Restor , a
mapping tool that shows where in the world people are doing this sort of restoring or conserving of ecosystems . Think of it as the
“ nature is healing ” meme from the early pandemic , but serious .
We should be angry about climate change and the destruction of ecosystems , Crowther told Vox . “ But without optimism , that outrage goes nowhere ,” he said . Examples of people restoring land give us all something to root for , and now there ’ s a spot to find a whole bunch of them — tens of thousands , actually .
Restor joins a trove of new environmental initiatives that focus on ecological “ wins .” Last summer , for example , the International Union for Conservation of Nature ( IUCN ) — which oversees the official “ red list ” of threatened species — came up with a new set of standards to measure the recovery of species , like the California condor . Perhaps it ’ s a sign that people want to look beyond what we have to lose , especially when there ’ s so much to gain .
Where nature is really healing
Figure 1 . The Nachusa Grasslands in northwestern Illinois , about 100 miles west of Chicago . Courtesy of Charles Larry / The Nature Conservancy .
There are more than 76,000 examples of restoration on Restor . In a former cattle ranch in Brazil ’ s Atlantic Forest , for example , a nonprofit planted trees to revive an ecosystem that ’ s now home to more than 170 species of birds . In the Tanzanian savanna , members of local villages have helped restore acacia woodlands , which provide fuelwood and timber , as well as habitat for hyenas , jackals , and other animals . ( You can find several other inspiring examples
here .) Restor is an open platform , so anyone can upload their own project if it involves conserving land , Crowther said .
Grassroots Vol 22 No 1 March 2022 42