Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:09 Good planets tropic, thriving sea wind, trees, sunshine.
Speaker 2 00:00:36 Hello, K squid listeners. It's every other Sunday again, and you're listening to sustainability now, a biweekly case, good radio show focused on environment, sustainability and social justice in the Monterey Bay region, California and the world. I'm your host, Ronnie Lipchitz. According to those who know, we are in the midst of the sixth grade extinction, this one brought on by the activities of human civilization that are resulting in a species extinction rate that is estimated to be between 1000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rates so far. Efforts to protect endangered plants, animals, and insects have proven inadequate to the challenge. What are we to do? My guest today is Professor Douglas Tmy, the author of Nature's Best Hope, a new Approach to conservation that starts in Your yard, published in 2019, and a just published companion version for children sub subtitled, how you can Save the World in your own yard. Both books propose what some might consider a radical approach to protecting species through transformation of front and backyards into conservation zones. Professor Douglas Tami, welcome to sustainability now.
Speaker 3 00:01:48 Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 00:01:51 Why, why don't we begin with some background, who you are, where you teach, what your research focuses are. Um,
Speaker 3 00:01:59 All right. I am, I am Doug Tmy. I am at the University of Delaware, uh, in Newark, Delaware. And I've been there for 42 years. I'm an entomologist, uh, actually behavior ecologist that focuses on insects. Uh, but lately, lately, the last 20 years, my research has focused on the plant choices that we make in our human dominated landscapes. How they impact food webs by influencing the insects that can or cannot use them, and then all the things that depend on insects.
Speaker 2 00:02:32 Well, that's interesting. Um, people don't generally think about these sorts of things except, uh, maybe with respect to monarch butterflies. I think that's the, the one, the the one insect that, that, you know, people do think about, about that.
Speaker 3 00:02:49 Right. Uh, monarchs are, you know, they're a wonderful poster child for plant specialization. You don't have them, and you don't have milkweeds.
Speaker 2 00:02:57 So you've published two versions of nature's best hope, one for grownups, the other for children, and I've read both. Um, can you summarize the main arguments in the two books, and have you changed your approach from the adult version to the children's version?
Speaker 3 00:03:17 Well, the premise of both books is that you are nature's best hope. Uh, and, and the books focus on why I say that, and really what it is that you need to do to address the biodiversity crisis. You know, nature, nature is composed of plants and animals that run the ecosystems that perform the life support that we all depend on. So you're nature's best hope because we're wrecking every nature everywhere we go. And in being nature's best hope, you're our own best hope. This is, this is selfish. We need natural systems to persist on this planet. Um, so I wrote the books because most people don't know that. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they think that we are totally separate from nature. Uh, you know, humans are here, nature's someplace else. They don't realize the degree that there is no someplace else in most places. Um, you know, we're starting to see headlines that are outlining things.
Speaker 3 00:04:08 Like, we've lost 3 billion breeding birds in North America and the last 50 years, and the UN says we're gonna lose a million species to extinction. Um, that's not an option. We lose a million species, we're gonna lose ourselves. So we need to address these issues. We do have parks, we do have preserves, uh, but we're in the sixth grade extinction event that the planet has ever experienced. So obviously they're not good enough. So now we have to practice conservation outside of parks and preserves on private property. And that's where it brings in you and me. It brings in everybody who has access to a piece of land. They become the future of conservation. And that's, that's the basic message of both books. The, the way the, um, young reader's version differs is it's simply written in language a little bit more accessible to young readers, but the concepts are identical. We didn't mm-hmm. We didn't really leave anything out, um, which is, which is good. Young readers are a lot more sophisticated than we give them, uh, credit for. So,
Speaker 2 00:05:08 Yeah. Sometimes I think parents are con, are terrified about that <laugh>, you know. So, um, what are you, are you trying to, you know, I was sort of wondering whether the, in writing a version for kids, uh, are you trying to get kids interested in conservation or hoping they might be able to convert their parents to this idea of backyard conservation? I don't know what quite what else to call it. Do you have a term for it?
Speaker 3 00:05:38 Um, well, we <laugh> we call it homegrown national park. I don't like the term backyard. Cause it implies that what we're talking about is so ugly. We have to hide it in the backyard. We can plant a very productive oak tree in the front yard too, and do a lot of conservation there. Um, so that's just my little pet pee.
Speaker 2 00:05:58 No, no, I, I, that's a great point. You know, I've been trying to think of a term that encompasses both the front yard and the backyard without having to justify
Speaker 3 00:06:06 No, just call em yards. Our yard.
Speaker 2 00:06:07 Yeah. Well, yeah.
Speaker 3 00:06:08 Even this five yard,
Speaker 2 00:06:09 But I like homegrown conservation. Um, anyway. Do you, do you see this as a means of, of getting kids to influence their parents?
Speaker 3 00:06:19 Yes, but I wanna influence the kids themselves, uh, too, because they are the future stewards of the planet. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and, and you know, if you listen to a typical media response to nature, it's, it's something scary. It's something that's gonna hurt you. Uh, you, if you go outside, you're gonna get a disease or a mountain lion is gonna eat you or something, terrible's gonna happen. And that's what the kids hear day in and day out. So a lot of them come at it afraid. If they're afraid of being, uh, interacting with nature, uh, if they don't love interacting with nature, they're gonna be lousy stewards, and we can't afford any more lousy stewardship. So yes, I want them to get, get interested in conservation. I do want them to influence their parents, and kids are great influencers, but the main target for this young reader's version is the, the child themselves. They grow up really fast. So, um, they can, they can start to, they can plant that egg corn, <laugh>, and they don't even have to ask their parents, Hey, look, what's growing here? You know,
Speaker 2 00:07:18 <laugh> Well, you know, one of the things I've repeatedly observed over the years in classrooms and other situations is that when I was a kid, we were taught geography in school, and I'm sure you remember this. Right. And that had to do with products. Right. And, and dances. Right. And that sometime around the, in the 1980s or nineties, kids started learning about environment and ecology, you know, so it's a much, at least in California, you know, there are lots of of gardens and, and there's a lot of, of curriculum
Speaker 3 00:07:50 Schools. Yeah. I didn't hear the dermatology until I was in college. That's right.
Speaker 2 00:07:54 Yeah. I probably didn't either. Um, I think we're probably close to the same age <laugh>.
Speaker 3 00:07:59 So I was in college when we had the very first Earth Day when we started recognized, yeah, okay, we actually need this planet. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:08:05 Yeah, yeah. So I, I started a year later. So, um, so if the proposal rests on convincing people right. That their interests are better served by, we'll call it homegrown, homegrown conservation strategy than by lawns and flower beds, how do you convince them of this? Especially, you know, and I think you notice given the sort of place of pride that so many people have with their front and backyards,
Speaker 3 00:08:33 Right? Well, there's two issues there. Uh, I've been surprised at how easy it is to convince people that we don't want to lose nature. We need it. EO Wilson says, we've got biophilia. We have an inherent love of natural things. What I need to convince them of is that we need to do this at home. And that's where we bump into the, the current culture of lawn being a status symbol. And the neater your yard is the better person you are, the higher status you have. Um, so what, you know, the, the challenge here is right now we ask our landscapes to do one thing, and that is be pretty right now, I want them to do two things. I want them to be pretty and ecologically functional at the same time. Uh, that's, it's a little bit of a challenge. It's not as hard as people think.
Speaker 3 00:09:19 The notion that if you use more plants or native plants in your yard, it's gonna be wild and messy. It's just not true. I mean, it can be if you let it be, but that can be true with, with Chinese plants too. So. Right, right. Um, it's, the, the, um, convincing that I thought I would need to do has been a lot easier. You know what, when I wrote Bringing Nature Home, I didn't think anybody read it, period. Well, they did. And it's changed my life. <laugh> too. Well, certainly. Okay. Well, this, this really can, we really can convince the world,
Speaker 2 00:09:50 You know, I, uh, but, but one observation is that it's one thing to convince people that this is a great idea, that it's another thing to get them to actually do it. Right. And I mean, I think when I say convince, you know, the question is, can you get people to actually, uh, assuming they're not sort of, you know, they don't have to deal with homeowners associations,
Speaker 3 00:10:10 Right? Well, we do have to deal with homeowners associations. How do we do that? Um, again, I, I have been talking about it for 20 years, and I do see that moving, um, there's more interest in it every single day. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, and, uh, it, you know, interest begets interest. When, when your neighbor starts doing something and you wonder what it is, uh, all of a sudden you're not bucking the trend to the degree. A lot of people, they don't wanna be rebels. They don't wanna go outside the, the neighborhood norms. Uh, but if reducing the area of law, and you have, and, and you're gonna keep blowing, you're gonna maintain what you have, but just adding more plants to your yard and making sure they're productive plants, when that becomes the norm, you know, people are gonna do it. The real key here is that most people don't garden at all. They hire somebody. So what we need to do is, is retrain the landscaping industry. So when they hire you, they come in, install the plants that ought to be there, they maintain them, they make it pretty, and you can, you can go to soccer practice, you don't have to worry about it.
Speaker 2 00:11:12 Yeah. You know, I sort of, I think possibly there's some differences between the east and west coasts, <laugh> in terms of that. And of course, you know, in, of course there are in some places economic incentives to install zero escapes and, and things that are more Right. Locally adapted. On the other hand, landscape landscapers get probably paid by the plant. Um, so, so, you know, there's, there's more. I mean, there, there is this sort of what Id like to call complex network around, around these sorts of things. I'm not, I'm not trying to harangue you here, uh, no,
Speaker 3 00:11:46 No.
Speaker 2 00:11:46 Once,
Speaker 3 00:11:47 But the paid by the plant thing is a perfect, uh, avenue because I'm talking about more plants. Yeah. Not fewer. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:11:55 Yeah. Um, oh, one thing I wanted to, just to, to, to point out to the listeners, of course, is that the suburban lawn is based on the English sort of landscape model, which has always been sort of, you know, interesting to me. Right. The higher the aristocracy cultivated their, their terror property. Right. So, so that it looked like a sort of ideal garden. Um, and, uh,
Speaker 3 00:12:24 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:12:24 That's, you know, exactly. Go on.
Speaker 3 00:12:28 That's why Lauren is a, that assemble, because only the rich could do that back then,
Speaker 2 00:12:32 Right? Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:12:32 If you were poor, you had to use every inch of your property for crops, you didn't have enough sheep, or you didn't have enough slaves to take care of it. So yes, that is, that is the origin. And it stuck very well. And of course, marketing is hell in the fifties, if you didn't have a perfect lawn, you were a communist, and, and, uh, you heard about it. So these are things we have to overcome here.
Speaker 2 00:12:55 Yeah. Probably that's gonna come back too. Right. Um, so, you know, reading nature's Best Hope, the, the, the adult version, I, I re see it as a critique of the conventional approach to biodiversity conservation that is, as you've said, setting aside large tracks of critical biomes in order to prevent degradation and, and, uh, decline of species. But what, tell some more about this critique of the, you know, set asides, the national parks and, and, uh, you know, areas like that.
Speaker 3 00:13:31 Right. Well, it's a wonderful first step. It's just not enough. All of these areas are too small and they're too isolated. We have 3.6% of the US in National Park system. We only have 12% of the US that's federally protected mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Now, there's a lot of other smaller groups doing it, but they're tiny isolated habitat fragments compared to what used to be there, which means the populations within them are tiny and, and isolated. And all populations fluctuate. Right. So, in good times they go up, but bad times they go down. And if you're a tiny population, often in your down cycle, you hit zero and you blink out, and then you're gone. And there's a steady loss of species from the little habitat patches that we've, we've created mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, David Kwaman has a perfect analogy between a, a Persian rug and an ecosystem.
Speaker 3 00:14:20 So you got a picture of a Persian rug that's a functional Persian rug, now chop it up into 71 pieces. None of them are functional Persian rugs. You got 71 rug fragments not acting like a Persian rug. And that's exactly what we've done to our, our ecosystems. So, um, it's a good thing we've done that. I mean, it's a good thing we have these habitat fragments, cuz that's where the biodiversity is huddling right now. What we need to do is practice conservation outside of those parks and preserves. And every bit of conservation we do outside of those parks is gonna help conservation within those parks. We wanna convert the areas outside, even though it's private property right now, they're no man's land. We wanna convert them to viable habitat. It might not be as good as what's inside the park, but it's gonna be a whole lot better than it is now. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:15:10 <affirmative>.
Speaker 3 00:15:11 And it forms connectivity, connecting those habitat fragments.
Speaker 2 00:15:23 So one of the, one of the people that you write about in the book is the late Edward O. Wilson, who, who was ant specialist, um, but spoke broadly about other kinds of issues having to do with ecology and the environment. And he proposed this setting aside half of the earth as a conservation zone, which strikes me as a kind of an expansion of the, the conventional approach. O okay. But putting aside the radical features of that's proposal, do you, do you think it could work if implemented?
Speaker 3 00:15:57 Um, yes, but not in the way that most people envision. We're not gonna cut the earth in half and ha and half half of it where there's people and, and all 8 billion of us in all of our detritus and infrastructure in the other half. I think the only model that will work is to yes, functionally preserve half of, of the area that's now in nature in, in ecosystems on planet earth. But we're gonna live right there. We're not going to have humans in nature separated anymore. We can't do it. We're already everywhere. We're not expelling any anybody from, from, uh, spaces. And we need ecosystem function everywhere, not just in parks and preserves. Uh, so that's, that's where the notion of homegrown national park comes in. We're going to have ecosystem function right where we live in this country. We've got 135 million acres of residential landscape. It's a great place to start. We've got 44 million acres of lawn an area the size of New England. Let's cut that in half and, and create ecosystem function. Uh, and the reason I can say, say this so positively is that that's what we've done at, at our place, and I see how wonderfully it works. Um, it's, it works much better than I thought it would. And if it works here, it's gonna work everywhere.
Speaker 2 00:17:11 Have you, have you actually done any kind of documentation or videos of this? I'm just curious
Speaker 3 00:17:17 For Yeah. Um, so my research has shown if you know the number of moth species in your local food web, you have a very good index of the, uh, stability of that food web and the productivity, because moths make, caterpillars and caterpillars are, are transferring more energy from plants to other animals than any other type of plant eater. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So for the last five years, I've been taking a picture of every species of MO that now is making a living at our house. And I'm up to 1,202 species. Wow. Um, and believe me, this place was mowed for hay when we moved in. There were not 1,202 species of mos here. So, uh, so it works. We've got 61 species of birds that have bred on our property because we've got so much bird food mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, and, you know, lots of other types of biodiversity that I haven't spent a lot of time measuring, but it works.
Speaker 2 00:18:07 Can you run us through then, you know, the, the argument about, um, the food webs and the species that are important to it, and, um, because you do that in the book Right, right. And right. Um, maybe you could, you could just talk some more about that, about, uh, moss the caterpillars to birds to, you know, whatever else is on top of those.
Speaker 3 00:18:29 Right. Uh, well, it starts with plants, right. Uh, and plants of course are, are capturing energy from the sun and through photosynthesis, turning it into food, into the simple sugars and carbohydrates that support just about all the animal life on the planet. But only if those animals have access to that food. And this is where the native plant connection comes in. Right. Most vertebrates don't eat plants directly. Most vertebrates eat the insects that ate those plants. Uh, and as I said, uh, caterpillars are transferring more energy than any other type of, of plant eater insects included. So let's just say we need plants that make caterpillars. Well, caterpillars are really fussy about what they, what they can eat. Plants don't wanna be eaten. They protect their tissues with nasty tasting chemicals. And only the insects that are adapted to those chemicals can eat that particular plant.
Speaker 3 00:19:22 The monarch butterfly is a perfect example. Milkweeds a toxic plant, not only is it toxic with cardiac glycosides, but it's got sticky latex sap in it, that gums caterpillar mouth parts shut so that they starve to death. So how do monarchs eat that? They've got the physiology that allows them to detoxify cardiac glycosides, and they have behavioral adaptations that block the flow of that sticky latex set. And they have those things because they have interacted with milkweed lineage for millions of years. That's what it takes to build up that type of specialization. What's neat about the Monarch is that it's not unique. 90% of the insects that eat plants have similar adaptations to eating the plants that they have specialized on. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So we build human dominated landscapes, and we only think about what those landscapes look like. And we pick plants from all over the world that are the prettiest plants that we have pretty landscapes, but they're non-native plants that are very poor at supporting local insect life.
Speaker 3 00:20:24 So, for example, Oaks support over 950 species of caterpillars in this country. Ginkgo great ornamental tree supports zero. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you would put ginkgos in your yard. You're not making any caterpillars to support your local chickies or tip mice or anything else. And that's, that's just one of a zillion examples. So plant choice is gonna determine how well you're sharing the energy that the plants and your property capture mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and of course you have it in acres of lawn. Um, that's not doing anything. There are four things every landscape needs to do if we're gonna reach a sustainable relationship with, with the nature that supports us. One of them is sequester carbon. It's gonna help carbon, uh, climate change, manage the watershed. Every landscape exists within a watershed and they have to help manage it, support a food web like we just talked about, and also support, uh, a complex community of pollinators. Not just honeybees. Got 4,000 species of native bees in this, on this country. And they did, you know, just about all the pollination before we brought over the honeybee. So we have to support all of that mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and you can look at where you live, look at your, your local landscape, look at your local park, how well is that area doing each one of those four things, everybody can, can improve the role that their, their landscapes are playing in those four areas, including my house. I'm working on it all the time.
Speaker 2 00:21:51 Hmm. Um, another, you know, another, another thing that you talk about in the book is, um, is not just the exclusion of non-native species. Um, you know, because of this argument that you're making rather than some other, I guess, more ethical or moral argument. You know, I, I, I don't know exactly, but, um, you, you talk about the movement of plants, birds and ins, insects and animals into suburban and urban spaces. Right. Which, which we're seeing more and more of as I suppose as habitat, um, shrinks. So, uh,
Speaker 3 00:22:33 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:22:33 Talk. Tell us about, about that. Okay.
Speaker 3 00:22:38 Yeah, of course. The, the, um, the creatures that are, are getting the most press these days would be, uh, deer, whitetail, deer, uh, mule deer. But, um, across the country now deer are over the carrying capacity. Their populations are larger than they areas can sustain. Uh, and, and because we are, are planting and replacing plants in our landscapes all the time, deer very easily move into our, our suburban neighborhoods. There's also no hunting there. Yeah. So they, the only enemy they have is, is your car, which is not, not a good one. Uh, and they have, you know, they have eaten the native plants in our forests, so now we have no understory. We've got no, no young trees to replace the old ones when they fall over and they leave the non-native plants. They don't like them. And that is what tips the competitive balance against our native plants and encourages, you know, all these invasive species that actually escape these from our, our garden.
Speaker 3 00:23:41 So we're replacing the native plants to support the food web with our, our ornamental plants, our oriental bittersweet and burning bush and barberry and Ms. Cantis and buckthorne, and on privet and on and on and on bush honeysuckle across the country. Uh, and it's one of the major factors that's degrading, uh, the the food web. So that's because, you know, we've got too many deer. Um, but we've got, you know, lots of other animals that are moving around in it. And some of them are quite welcome. Like coyotes, I welcome them because it's one of the only things that can help us control the deer, at least the first couple days of, of, uh, of life.
Speaker 2 00:24:22 Hmm.
Speaker 3 00:24:23 So what do we do? We have open season on coyotes. The, the one hope we have, we shoot as soon as we see them. So,
Speaker 2 00:24:29 Yeah. Well, I, I live on the uc, Santa Cruz campus, and we see all kinds of critters here. You know, moving, I mean, plenty of deer, but, but some coyotes. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, although, you know, one of the things then you write about is the adaptability of some of these species to urban conditions mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right. One thing that, that I've observed here over the last 20 or 30 years is the explosion in crows and ravens
Speaker 3 00:24:57 <laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:24:58 And, you know, I'm sort of wondering just as an aside, you know, how do you ex explain that? Is it simply the evacuation of exist of Nietzsche's, you know, of, of other species? I mean, what's the,
Speaker 3 00:25:12 Well, crows and ravens, they eat human garbage, and we provide a lot of it. That's how I explain that they, you know, we're giving them a resource. They're omnivores. Uh, they eat just about anything. Uh, and so we create a lot of, of, uh, waste all the time mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and it's the primary thing that's, that's promoting them.
Speaker 2 00:25:34 And you and your book, you have the story about a fox right. Under the, under the house. So, so, uh, you know, what, what's the attraction of, of a suburban or semi-urban setting for foxes?
Speaker 3 00:25:47 Well, we have, uh, a lot of squirrels and we have a lot of rabbits in our suburban neighborhoods.
Speaker 2 00:25:53 Uhhuh. Okay.
Speaker 3 00:25:54 And that is what they're living off primarily. Um, yeah. That was my, my son's back porch. Uh, and my son was worried the fox was going to eat Jimmy, which is, you know, it's a typical, that's his son.
Speaker 2 00:26:07 Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 00:26:07 Typical reaction. We see something wild and right away it's dangerous. It's gonna hurt us. There's no way the fox is going to eat Jimmy. And the fox actually is successfully reproduced under his porch, and then they all left and everybody's happy. So
Speaker 2 00:26:20 Yeah. We've actually had some incidents around here of coyotes snatching small dogs. Yes. Um, you know, but we also have mountain lions, uh, cougar's on the campus, you know, in, in the, in the mountains here. So, uh, they're a little bit,
Speaker 3 00:26:35 We don't have that issue,
Speaker 2 00:26:36 <laugh>. No, no. They're, they're a little, they don't, they don't usually come down, but, but sometimes they're observed in, you know, people's backyards. Um, well, let's go back to this, uh, this other question which I wanted to, to talk about. Right. And, and it seems to me that both macro, what I'm calling macro and micro conservation, right. The big areas and then the yards, um, coming into conflict with the foundational element of our society. And that's property. I mean, you mentioned private property, right? Property is, is sacrosanct. Right. Um, and of course we see, uh, in the, in the sort of state-owned commons, the federal lands, which have been leased out for grazing and oil pumping and all kinds of activities. Right. We see, we see the people who are, have interest in those sort mobilizing to prevent conservation strategies. Right. Well,
Speaker 3 00:27:36 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:27:37 Right. I mean, you know, and I mean, that's the subject of an intense, you know, a lot of lobbying and a lot of of struggle in the courts too. Um, I'm sort of curious now, and you've already, you've already mentioned it, um, how do you, you know, because private property is so central to your proposal, right? Do you, do you run into objections? Do you, do you can, can we do what you're proposing with, uh, given the centrality of private property in our liberal political systems? And I mean, it's a political theory question. I know you're an entomologist, <laugh>, uh, but I'm particularly interested in property, so, um, I thought I'd throw that one at you.
Speaker 3 00:28:24 Okay. Well, I, I'll, I'll answer that by reminding everybody that our properties are not like Las Vegas. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. What happens on our properties does not stay on our properties. And that, that really weakens that private property concept. And we already get it. We know we're not allowed to go to our private property and open a vial of smallpox spores. Sure. We understand. That's not, that's gonna escape. We understand that if a stream goes through our property, we're not allowed to throw cyanide in it because it's not gonna stay there. That is true for every plant we pick for our property. It's true for, for those four things I mentioned, our properties need to be doing. If we destroy the pollinator populations on our property, it impacts our local ecosystem. If we don't sequester carbon with the plants we choose, it's impacting everybody.
Speaker 3 00:29:14 Um, so, so the way we, there's a conflict, a direct conflict between the notion that I can do whatever I want on my property and not hurt anybody else, because you do hurt everybody else, or you can help everybody else. And it's simply a matter of explaining that, getting people to realize that your private property is actually a piece of the earth. We are evolutionary guests on this planet. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And you can say you own a piece of the earth, but if you're gonna own it, you also own the responsibility of sustaining it. And you can do that from a selfish perspective, because if we destroy all our ecosystems, we're destroying the life support we depend on. So, you know, so there's so ecologically the concept of private property ownership, and I can do it whatever I want, is highly flawed. And that's, it's simply a matter of explaining that most people come along with it with that, that a big problem.
Speaker 2 00:30:06 Yeah. Man, I, I would respond that most people don't really understand that kind of, you know, reasoning about private property, about their property. Right. It's, and it's much more an emotional thing than it is a kind of logical Sure. You know, or reasoning point, because,
Speaker 3 00:30:21 You know, this is, this is where carrots work better than sticks. Sure. Yeah. Look at California, you get $3 per square foot rebate for every square foot of loan you remove. I'm getting paid to do this. I know we don't have enough water for it. And, and it's working.
Speaker 2 00:30:36 Um, well, you know, in terms of, uh, I mean, y your strategy is to try and convince people to do this, right? Right. But there is also the, the approach of, of, um, you know, trying to motivate larger scale chains. I mean, you're focusing on individuals, which one by one can make a difference, but there might be some virtue in trying to, you know, do this through legislation and various other kinds of, of incentives, which can also be coercive. Right. Um, have you, I mean, have you thought about that? Right? Is is, is because I don't think that appears in the books. I could be wrong about that, but
Speaker 3 00:31:26 No, you're, you're right. Um, and yes, I've thought about it, but it, it's, as you say, it's not been my approach. There are lots of other people trying to influence policy, uh, and, you know, if you can do that, it, it works. There are some states that have banned the sale of invasive plants, and, you know, that's very powerful. But in general, our current society does not like top-down regulation, and they will, uh, rebel against anything the government says, just because the government said it. I'm trying to get people to address their little piece of the earth without having to go through government just because it's rewarding. They can see, uh, that it's actually making an impact. Uh, and we don't have to get tied up in, into policy policy's Great, let's do it. It just isn't, hasn't been my approach to it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and there are many other people working on that, so mm-hmm. <affirmative>
Speaker 2 00:32:27 One, one of the things that, that many people have to deal with are restrictions imposed on them by homeowners associations. Um, and, uh, maybe you could test talk about that and, and how people might actually, you know, change, get, get their HOAs to change their minds about landscaping.
Speaker 3 00:32:49 Yeah. It is a, a significant hindrance for, for, uh, a lot of places. Um, and of course, homeowners associations were, uh, payment to being in order to maintain the status of the community. They didn't want people to put rusty cars in their front yards. And they came up with a number of rules, and that included rules to regulate landscaping. Uh, we got the notion that if everybody did the same, everybody was neat and tiny, that that was high status. Uh, so anybody who, who varies from that, that, uh, rubber stamp type of landscape comes up against those h o a rules. So how do we get around that? Well, I think the easiest thing to do is to, um, not try to buck the system entirely, but, but work with it. So a, a, uh, lawn as part of that status symbol, for sure. I'm suggesting we reduce the area of lawn but not get rid of it.
Speaker 3 00:33:44 Um, and it can be very useful in terms of, of, uh, demonstrating that, that you're not a rebel. You, you know, you're part of the system. You're simply going to have less lawn. The lawn you keep is going to be manicured. You're gonna mow it all the time. Lawn is the perfect plant to walk on without killing it. Uh, and it is a significant cue for care. So let's say you add some, some, uh, plants and beds to your yard, outline them with at least a mower's worth width of, of lawn lawns, strep along your driveway or along your, your sidewalk. Um, and you maintain that, that convinces people that, that, uh, you're with the program, you're, you're, uh, you're not rebelling. Um, and it, it, it is neat looking. So, uh, it shows that what you're doing beyond that lawn is intentional. Uh, and very often there's, there's no complaints at all when you, you keep the lawn that you have manicured.
Speaker 3 00:34:41 Um, we're just adding more plants. We're adding more plants that are, are biologically relevant, uh, to our landscapes. Uh, and, and when you do it that way, very few people do complain. Uh, now some people, uh, re re uh, really do challenge their HOAs. There was a couple in Maryland, and they were featured in the New York Times a couple months ago with an article called, I Fought the Lawn, and the Lawn Lost. And they did, they sued their, their h o a and, and they won. Uh, it did cost them $60,000 to do that, but it set a legal precedent. Uh, so HOAs across the country are probably a little less likely to, uh, take you to court anyway. I suggest that people join their h o a and educate from within. Um, we're in a different time now than we were when, when a lot of the HOA rules were established. We do have a biodiversity crisis. A lot of people are recognizing that. We're recognizing that we're part of nature. We need it, we need to live with it. And finding ways to do that, um, at home, it's an important part of our future. And a lot, you know, the HOAs, they're manned by people. They're, they can be reasonable. So I have, I have people sending me emails saying, I did join my H O a, I've convinced them and, and everything's great. So I think that's a mechanism that works as well.
Speaker 2 00:36:04 Yeah, I mean, it sounds to me like, like planting park strips, you know, along the, a a sidewalks and things like that might be a, a good strategy, good place to start with. Our homeowners association, uh, has rules about what belongs to the homeowner and what belongs to the commons. Right. And the commons is generally grass, or nowadays, it's what's ever growing in place of grass. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Cause it's too expensive to replace the lawn. Uh, but anyway, um, one of the things that, that I think might have come up earlier, uh, is the great insect extinction and its causes and its impacts. And maybe you could tell us some more about that.
Speaker 3 00:36:49 Yeah. We're, we're in a, a period of global insect decline. I remember EO Wilson told us in 1987 that insects are the little things that run the world. Uh, and he actually outlined very clearly that if insects were to disappear, so would most everything else, including humans. So the loss of insects is serious. We've already lost about 45% of them according to some studies. Um, so we have to address the causes. Uh, and Dave Wagner at the University of of Connecticut says it's, it's really death by a thousand cuts. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I mean, there's a lot of causes of insect declines from the misuse and overuse of, of pesticides and industrial agriculture, uh, light pollution at night. It's a major cause of, of insect decline. Um, but habitat loss is the, is the big one. And habitat loss includes the way we landscape all our human dominated, uh, areas when we favor plants from other continents that don't support the insect life that we need.
Speaker 3 00:37:49 Um, it is a factor. And, uh, I don't know if I said it before, but we've got 135 million acres of residential landscapes. That's a big, big chunk of land that can, uh, either exacerbate the situation or, or help it depending on plant choice. Which brings us to, uh, one of the things that we found out in my lab, and that is that all plants are not created equal in their ability to support insects. Uh, we, we know that non-native plants are very poor at doing it, but all native plants are not equally good as well. Some are much better than others in supporting insect populations. Uh, as a matter of fact, just 14% of our native plants, uh, are supporting 90% of the Caterpillar populations out there that run our, our food webs. I call those keystone plants. Uh, and in a landscape without keystone plants is going to have a failed food web, uh, sooner or later.
Speaker 3 00:38:45 So, um, I like to think of keystone plants as the, the, uh, two by fours and the ecological house that you're building. Uh, they're the support system. You can't build a, an ecological house out of wallpaper. And that's what we've been trying to do for a long time. Remember what a keystone is. It's the stone in the middle of the Roman arch. And if you take that stone out of the arch, the arch collapses mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So that's the analogy. If you take keystone plants out of your local food web, the food web collapses, what you can find, what those keystone plants are, um, by going to Native plant finder, it's a section of the National Wildlife Federation website, native plant finder, and put in your zip code and the ranked list of, uh, both woody and herbaceous plants pop up. Now, if you're in California and you are in California, uh, cal scape is a similar tool, but it's, that's even more, uh, accurate because it has every species of native plant in California geo-reference. So you can look at a map and see exactly where these plants occur, uh, and, and you know where you live, and you can find a good overlap for what ought to be in your yard.
Speaker 3 00:40:01 For birds, what insects are the most important? Well, 96% of our terrestrial birds rear their young on insects. And most of those insects are caterpillars. And there's several reasons caterpillars are better food than other types of insects. Um, one is that they're soft. I like to, to call caterpillars, uh, sausages, little sausages with a very thin wrapper. And the thin wrapper is, they're exoskeleton, but because it's thin, they're very soft and pliable. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and if you're a parent bird feeding, you're young, you wanna be able to stuff that caterpillar down the throat of your offspring without injuring them. Uh, so it's hard to do that with a beetle. Beetles are not like little sausages. They're like little tanks. Uh, and they often have very sharp edges. So beetles can be very common, but, uh, they're not, not that they're like little, what I say, little tanks.
Speaker 3 00:40:50 Yeah. They're not very good food. Uh, caterpillars are also, they're high in protein. They're high in fat. They're the best source of carotinoids for birds during the breeding season. Um, so carotinoids, it turns out, are essential components of vertebrate diets, but we vertebrates don't make them. We have to get them from plants. Uh, and that includes birds, but the birds aren't eating plants. What is eating plant? The caterpillar that, that they're feeding their young. So, uh, caterpillars are the best source of carotinoids out of all of the types of insects. And, and that includes earthworms that birds feed their young. So, uh, it turns out that caterpillars really are an essential component of most birds diets. Uh, and, uh, that means most birds need caterpillars. So the next question is, how many caterpillars do they need? Uh, and interesting research with Carolina Chickies suggests it's a whole bunch, 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars required to support one clutch, to make one clutch of chickies, get them to the point where they leave the nest.
Speaker 3 00:41:53 And after they leave the nest, the parents keep feeding 'em caterpillars for another 21 days. So you're talking about tens of thousands of caterpillars to make one clutch of a bird that's a third of an ounce. And if you're gonna have chickies breeding in your yard, you need all of those caterpillars in your yard. Cuz they only forage about 50 meters from the nest. They're not flying five miles down the road to the nearest wood lot. Uh, and of course, if we landscape in a way that does not make all those caterpillars, that's called insect decline. And that, that's where it really comes back to, to, uh, threaten the food web in our residential neighborhoods. We're not making in the insects required to have to support the things that used to live there.
Speaker 2 00:42:32 What, what are the best plants then for, uh, encouraging caterpillar reproduction?
Speaker 3 00:42:38 Uh, well, the best plant in 84% of the counties in which they occur is one of the oaks. Anything in the genus corcus, we've got 91 species of oaks in this country. I think California has 27 species, something like that. You're, you're very well endowed with, with oaks. Um, more than 950 species of caterpillars use oaks as, as host plants. Um, and, and let's compare that to, uh, a good native plant in the east. Tulip trees, only 21 species use tulip trees. Mm-hmm. So they're huge differences among our native plants and their ability to make those, those caterpillars. Hmm.
Speaker 2 00:43:15 Um, what, what, how, how, you know, how would someone go about growing an oak then?
Speaker 3 00:43:20 <laugh>? Uh, it's easy. Uh, if you have an acorn, and I suggest you, you start young, um, so really, I'm not serious. I'm not kidding you around. I'm gonna find a, an acorn when they drop in the fall, uh, plant it right away, either in a pot or straight into the ground, uh, because that acorn will germinate if it's in the white oak group, it germinates in the fall. If it's in the red oak group, it germinates in the spring, but it'll germinate in the first year. It puts down 10 times more root biomass than above ground biomass. So it's building a root system that will allow it to grow rapidly. After that. It's a little slow in the beginning. And people get the idea that oaks grow really slowly, but once they're established, then they, then they grow quite large. I planted acorns all over my property when we moved in and they're free. That helps.
Speaker 2 00:44:15 Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:44:15 Those, those trees now. So it's 22 years later, those trees are over 60 feet tall at this point. Wow. They're, they are big landscape trees. I got them all for nothing. Uh, and they're supporting the bulk of the biodiversity at my house. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:44:29 <affirmative>. Well, if, if somebody wants to do this, um, where can they find out, you know, more information about how to go about doing it? You mentioned those websites, but, um, right. More practically, what, what should they do? Uh,
Speaker 3 00:44:46 Well, I would direct you to homegrown national park.org. It's loaded with information about, uh, how to do this. Uh, and, you know, not, not just in Pennsylvania where I live, but all over the country, that native plant finder, uh, on the National Wildlife Federation website is a good source. National Wildlife Federation has, uh, another, uh, website called, um, Keystone Plants by Eco Region. Uh, and that not only tells you which plants are best at making the caterpillars, but it also tells you which plants are best at supporting pollinators. Uh, when we support our pollinators, we wanna support these specialists. Pollinators, we've got about 4,000 species of native bees in this country, and over a third of them can only reproduce in the pollen of particular plants. So if you, if you landscape, if you, if you make a pollinator garden for specialist pollinators, you have supported all the pollinators because the generalists can use those plants as well. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, if you only plant for the generalists, then you only have generalists. You've lost, you know, 1300 species of native, native bees. So, um, and, uh, around the country, uh, some of the best plants for gen, for specialist bees would include the golden rods, uh, asters, uh, sunflowers. I think there's something like 67 bees in California, they can only reproduce on, on perennial sunflowers. Um, so those are the ones you wanna face. That's
Speaker 2 00:46:12 Interesting. Yeah. Uhhuh, <affirmative>
Speaker 3 00:46:13 And the other ones will, will come along.
Speaker 2 00:46:16 Yeah. I, I don't think people are aware of how many bees species there are. Um, you're right. I mean, you don't see. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so, you know, again, if, what, what should, should a an individual do in terms of acquiring, you know, the species? So they've, they've looked online, they've identified, you know, what's, what's appropriate. Right. Um, what's the next step?
Speaker 3 00:46:44 Well, the next step is to find somebody who, who will sell you that plant if you're not gonna find it on your own. And we don't promote going out and digging up native plants. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> you the seed here and there is Okay. But we, we don't, we don't wanna pirate the populations that, that already exist. Uh, and the best source, I think is, is the native plant society that is in your state. Again, California has the best native plant society in the whole country, but, uh, every state has a native plant society, and they, they know who is selling native plants in different parts of, of your state. So there, there are specialist nurseries that sell native plants, but our, our big generalist nurseries also are, are selling more and more natives. They're recognizing a business opportunity. It's not that they oppose selling native plants in the past, it's just that nobody bought them.
Speaker 3 00:47:35 So why, you know, there was no market for them. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, well now there's a market for them. The demand for native plants exceeds the supply. And that's a business opportunity. So that is starting to, uh, they're starting to grow enough plants to meet that demand. And that's, that's a good thing. But, uh, it's, you know, around the country, it can be, it can be a bit of a challenge finding those plants depending on how many nurseries have, have taken up. The challenge, I know in southern Virginia, it's just kind of a vacuum for, for native plants. Nobody's selling them. Um, so that's where the Native Plant society and your state can help. They'll point you in the right direction. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:48:10 <affirmative>. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, oh, I was gonna, uh, you know, point out that, that the, the best way of course to, uh, inspire people to do this is peer to peer, neighbor to neighbor. Right. If, if you can do this successfully and, you know, maybe lobby your neighbor about the, the virtues of doing that as opposed to all of the material online. I mean, there's gonna be a, a flood of materials online and it's really getting, getting to the doing. Um, so where can listeners find your books?
Speaker 3 00:48:43 Um, I, you know, the major bookstores carry them, but, but so does Amazon. That's the easiest thing to do. Um, I don't sell them personally, <laugh> the way we buy any other book. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:48:57 Lucky, lucky for you. Um, are you doing, so you're doing this sort of virtual book tour right now?
Speaker 3 00:49:04 I do a lot of webinars. Uh, this was one good, good feature of Covid. Uh, everything was in person before and Right. It took a lot of time. And then overnight everything was virtual. I'd never even done a, a webinar before. But, uh, you know, it used to be a real challenge for me. I live in Pennsylvania. To get to California was a three or four day adventure. And I have a job, it's hard to do that. But with a webinar, go upstairs one hour and I'm done. And that's opened up, uh, access to, uh, every state in the union. The only states I haven't talked in are new, and that's not true Utah. That's not true. North Dakota. There's only two states I haven't talked in, in so far, Uhhuh.
Speaker 2 00:49:47 Um,
Speaker 3 00:49:47 Because webinars have, have opened it up and I'm doing them all the time, including tonight.
Speaker 2 00:49:52 <laugh>. Yeah. Well, that's, that's great. It's, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm impressed by what you're able to do, um, as a result. Well, thank you Professor Douglas Tmy for being my guest on sustainability now.
Speaker 3 00:50:08 Well, I I really appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 2 00:50:11 Okay. And, um, I encourage, I encourage listeners to go out and look for these, these books for themselves and for their kids. Thank you for tuning in to sustainability. Now, if you'd like to listen to previous shows, you can find them at case squid.org/sustainability now and Spotify, Google Podcasts, and PocketCasts among other podcast sites. So thanks for listening and thanks to all the staff and volunteers who make Case Good, your community radio station and keep it going. And so until next, every other Sunday, sustainability, now
Speaker 1 00:50:53 Good Planets find sea winds blowing breathing trees.
