by Dawn Pape | May 16, 2022 | Chemicals, Habitat & Biodiversity
COON RAPIDS, MN—Peace Lutheran Church, May 11, 2022. Nonprofit We All Need Food and Water is renting goats from Midwest Goat Mitigation to eat the weeds in Peace Lutheran Church’s community garden.
The garden committee and the community gardeners at Peace Lutheran Church are fed up with the invasive, noxious, and sometimes just obnoxious weeds ravaging their 3.5-acre empty lot turned nature area and garden. One might say that the weeds are really getting their goats. Their solution? To hire some goats to eat these awful weeds!
This weekend, May 13-15, 2022, Midwest Goat Mitigation out of Ramsey, Minnesota will be bringing thirty goats to munch down noxious leafy spurge and spotted knapweed, persistent Siberian elm, and painful nettles and sandburs. To ensure safety, the goats will be supervised around the clock—even overnight—by community volunteers and scouts. Twelve-year-old Tenderfoot Scouts Will, Mason, and Ryan from Northern Star Council, Troop 639 were bursting with excitement about the opportunity to do some camping. After all, they haven’t camped since early February in below zero weather when they made their own quinzee snow shelter.
Why Goats?
Goats are an environmentally friendly way to remove invasive weeds without chemicals and with less labor than manual pulling or spraying weeds. Another benefit is that the goats’ digestive systems break down plant seed so there is little re-germination, unlike mowing where there is a lot of seed that is dropped to the ground. Prescribed grazing projects such as these manage unacceptable levels of weedy species to promote desirable plant growth, reduce erosion, increase water infiltration, and improve wildlife habitat. Other benefits of using goats are the fertilizer they leave behind and that they can help sow seeds with their hooves as they graze.
“We are a congregation of do-ers,” explained Senior Pastor Valerie Brown-Greenly, “our mission is to ‘Listen, Serve, and Live God’s Word’ and our Peace Garden embodies how we are serving the community by providing a respite on a busy corner, and a place to grow healthy food for many community members.
A life-long member of the church and We All Need Food and Water Executive Director Dawn Pape says her work at the garden barely counts as work because it’s so rewarding. For the last couple of years, the nonprofit has partnered with Peace in coordinating the community garden. “Our little Peace Community Garden helps solve big problems like food insecurity, obesity, pollinator decline, and even climate change,” says Pape. “This community garden also provides a place for people to gather, walk, or just enjoy watching the killdeer from a bench made by Eagle Scout Liam Lucore,” she added. This year We All Food and Water will help the garden committee add more pollinator-friendly plants after the weeds are greatly reduced so the beneficial plants can root.
The goats will graze for about three days within a fenced-in area. Goat owner Tom Sonenstahl commented, “These goats are professional. I don’t allow the public to pet them because when they’re socializing with people, they’re not doing their jobs.” The public is welcome to observe them from outside the fence. Sonenstahl noted that the goats themselves are his “marketing department” because they attract so much attention. “Goats are also great employees because they love their work, don’t take bathroom breaks, and work as a team section by section, efficiently eating their way through the plot of land,” offered Sonenstahl.
About The Partners Involved in this Project
As the name implies, We All Need Food and Water is an equity-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization rooted in environmental education and action. They host monthly family-friendly F.U.N Events (Future Unfolds Now) around the Metro. Although they educate about many issues that impact our food and water, they are focusing on climate issues since the climate is the driver of all other ecosystems—and every other human pursuit.
For over 60 years, Peace Lutheran Church has been an active, welcoming, and inclusive congregation. Peace is particularly known for uplifting and diverse music, understanding that humor and fun are central to what it means to be Christian, and their devotion to caring for others.
Midwest Goat Mitigation is a member of the Ecological Service Livestock Network, a group tailored to conservation, which uses livestock as a way to combat invasive species, manage land, and restore ecological functionality by reducing the use of pesticides and fossil fuels.
by Dawn Pape | Feb 3, 2022 | Climate, Habitat & Biodiversity
Plastics are as awesome as they are problematic. There’s no question that they add comfort, convenience, and even life-saving devices to society. But they also create waste and litter, contribute to climate change, pollute our water, harm wildlife, and have largely unknown health impacts for us. Worldwide, plastic production has skyrocketed since the 1970s, and a lot of the growth has come in the form of packaging and single-use plastics. Most plastics are made from oil and gas—fossil fuels that contribute to climate change. About 4% to 8% of the world’s oil production is for plastics, and most plastics are thrown away after a single use. This feels wrong, doesn’t it?
Be part of the solution to reduce waste, protect water and wildlife, address climate change, and look after the health of ourselves and future generations by joining us and the Hennepin County Plastic-Free Challenge and committing to actions that help create a plastic-free world.
by Dawn Pape | Mar 26, 2020 | Climate, Habitat & Biodiversity
The “coronavirus”/COVID-19 is gripping the world’s attention and while many people are asking how we got into this situation, ecologists shake their heads, because they have been predicting and warning the world for decades of potential global pandemics resulting, in part, from diminishing biodiversity—or numbers of different species of plants and animals. The COVID-19 virus isn’t the first pandemic, and it likely won’t be the last. The question is, how do we look down the road to protect ourselves from future pandemics?
Background: linking biodiversity and pandemics
With abundant biodiversity, there are complex relationships between plants, animals, viruses, bacteria, fungus, and molds. In remote ecosystems, pathogens can sort of “duke it out” with each other and humans are likely unaware that these interactions are even taking place because we don’t interact with these ecosystems. However, when we lose biodiversity and viruses can’t find their regular hosts, they’ll pick their next victim (The Guardian, March 18, 2020). This helps explain how viruses can change hosts and hop from a non-human to a human.
While scientists are still pinpointing the origin of the COVID-19, they have determined that it is not made by humans in a lab. It is derived from the natural world from a non-human or animal host and then jumped to humans, just like the Ebola virus did. According to the Scripps Research Institute, it is difficult at this point to determine whether it entered humans as a pathogen or became a pathogen after it entered humans.
Vanishing Biodiversity
Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction that we are in the midst of, but few people seem to be talking about. To gain a little perspective, over the last half billion years, there have been five mass extinctions and the sixth one, commonly referred to as the Holocene or Anthropocene extinction, is currently underway. Predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs, we are losing up to 200 plant and animal and arthropod species per day, according to Elizabeth Kolbert’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. The extinctions span numerous families of plants and animals, including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and arthropods. Whereas it is typical to have species extinction continually occur, the current rate of extinction is estimated to be 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural “background” rates. (Note: the reason for the wide range, is that there are still so many species that haven’t been documented and it is not uncommon to lose species as we discover them.)
What is causing this mass extinction? We are. The term “Anthropocene” refers to the fact that this mass extinction is caused by humans, since humans are encroaching on all virtually all habitats on Earth from biodiverse coral reefs and rainforests to wetlands, prairies and temperate forests. However, since most us humans on the planet live in urban areas, we might not see the encroachment on natural spaces up close and personally. The goods that we conveniently order online might be derived from limited metals mined on the other side of the planet where deforestation had to occur to create the mine. The warehouses where the good is stored cleared some more land and used concrete and metal to build that warehouse, and so on. Basically, the extinctions are a result of “death by one thousand cuts”—or, actually, 7.6 billion people’s daily cuts in consuming resources needed for regular life activities. Every single resource we consume is derived from the Earth and we all are consumers. In other words, we’ve all got blood on our hands.
The sobering facts
- The COVID-19 virus can live outside the body for up to five days, as opposed to typical flu viruses that live for up to a few hours. Nature is rearing its ugly head and showing people that nature is still boss.
- We need to start respecting nature by recognizing that the exponential growth of the human population coupled with our consumptive lifestyles are the putting tremendous pressures on our natural world.
Take Action
So, if you want to drop this article and run away screaming, that’s good. You are recognizing the peril we are facing and the need for urgent action. But instead of running, now is the time for clear-headed calmness, compassion and action. Since we are all consumers, there should be no more finger pointing or name calling. We need to evolve together into less consumptive lifestyles and support each other along the way. We need to give ourselves, our neighbors, and our kids grace as we work together to continue the learning process, stay connected, engaged, and focused to overcome the biggest threat humanity has ever faced—protecting the planet to save ourselves. Now is the perfect time to act since so many things are changing anyhow, how about implementing really thoughtful changes that have long-term positive impacts?
Are we destined to just sit and meditate all day and try not to eat or drink? This is clearly not acceptable to most of us. But the important thing to remember is that no one can do everything, but every individual can do something. Your job is to figure out where your talents are and do what you can do. Because if we all chip in a little, our combined efforts can result in massive and much needed shifts. The heart of the environmental crisis comes down to population pressures and excess consumption. We need to be laser-focused on stabilizing population growth and reducing consumption of all resources.
- Stabilize population growth. This is a tough topic to approach because absolutely no one wants to be told how to govern their own bodies. However, it has been shown that giving women (especially in developing countries) educational opportunities is directly related to prosperity and having fewer children. Can you support educating women locally or internationally?
- Reduce purchases. What can you borrow, rent, buy second hand? Ask yourself how much is enough? Does your home really need to reflect the latest trends and styles and need to resemble a Pottery Barn catalog?
- Reduce packaging. Do you really need single-serve packaged grocery items? Eat fresh food that comes in nature’s packaging whenever possible. Look for innovative products that don’t require plastic packaging such as tablet toothpaste, bar soap/shampoo, powder laundry detergent in reusable containers. Demand retailers to do better with packaging. Why can’t more grocery stores offer bulk alternatives? Why do we need a new plastic bottle each time we buy shampoo?
- Reuse. If you are done with an item, find a new home for it via OfferUp, Facebook, Craigslist or many other online tools.
- Recycle. Hopefully, since you’ve already reduced and reused so you have little to recycle. Although recycling is better than throwing away, it still is energy intensive and consumes resources.
- Compost. All organic materials, such as vegetable peels and yard waste, contain valuable nutrients that should not be squandered.
- Don’t waste food. A lot of energy was made to grow, process, ship, store, and cook your food. Don’t let all that energy and water go to waste!
- Eat a plant-based diet/lower on the food chain. As Wendell Berry famously said, “Eating is an agricultural act. It is also an ecological act, and a political act, too. Though much has been done to obscure this simple fact, how and what we eat determines to a great extent the use we make of the world—and what is to become of it.” To make sense of this statement, consider that 60% of the world’s mammals are livestock (largely to feed humans), 36% of the world’s mammals are humans, which leaves only 4% of the world’s mammals to be wild mammals. (The Guardian, May 2018) These numbers reflect our land use and that much of the Earth has been cleared for urban people spaces or grazing areas for livestock to feed people. Wild spaces are diminishing rapidly.
- Grow (some of) your own food or buy from local farmers’ markets where the food hasn’t traveled more than 75 miles or so. If you’re not a gardener, plant apple trees, raspberry, and blueberry bushes instead of traditional landscape plants. If you don’t have a yard, support those markets and/or grow some greens in your windowsill.
- Plant native flowers. The flowers will support the bees that will pollinate your fruits and vegetable gardens.
- Continue meeting or working remotely. How many of those meetings really need to be face-to-face? If you have a desk job, work with your employer to continue working from home even after this COVID-19 issue dies down.
- Get outside and enjoy the nature around you! The beauty around us still abounds. Look for it. Notice it. Teach your kids to connect with it. Walk. Ride your bike. Turn your community into a walkable “livable” community. We are fortunate to have natural resources to enjoy and protect. Let’s keep it that way.
In the wake of this strange time when people are “flattening the curve” of infected individuals by staying home, we can also flatten the curves in numerous environmental problems and seize this opportunity to make sweeping changes on how we interact with the natural world. Calculate your lifestyle’s impact on biodiversity with numerous online calculators such as https://yieldorganic.com/biodiversity-calculator/. If your share exceeds the average, are there changes you can make to your lifestyle? No judgement. Remember, we are all consumers and we’re all in it together.
