“The black prairie was built by the
prairie plants, a hundred distinctive species of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, by
the prairie fungi, insects, and bacteria; by the prairie mammals and birds, all
interlocked in one humming community of co-operations and competitions, one biota. This biota through ten thousand years of
living and dying, burning and growing, preying and fleeing, freezing and
thawing, built that dark and bloody ground we call prairie.”
Aldo Leopold , A Sand County Almanac
Yes, Leopold got it right. There is only one biota. He coined this phrase in reference to the
formation of what we call prairie. But I think we can extrapolate the phrase to
global significance. Think about it. All
life is connected. All life is dependent
on things like carbon, water, sunlight, nutrients, rocks, soil, temperature,
oxygen , etc. One life form performs
functions in the ecosystem needed by other living organisms in the system. Consider the simple connections like plants
capturing the energy of sunlight in photosynthesis and then making that energy
available to animals and humans for life support, while at the same time these
same plants are releasing the oxygen needed by these same animals and humans.
And the animals in turn release the carbon dioxide needed by the plants. That
is a very intimate life connection – so do you see what I mean when I say there
is only one biota? What about the bacteria
and fungi in the soil that decompose complicated molecular compounds and
release nutrients to plants for life support or those very important bacteria
that cooperate with leguminous plant roots to take the nutrient
we call nitrogen right out of the air we all breathe? Very few organisms on earth could survive
very long at all if the sun did not appear each day to supply the energy we all
need – all of us, one biota, depend on the sun- except for some microbes that
can metabolize certain molecular compounds and do not need the sun, but they
still need the air and the elements released into that air by plants and
animals and yes, rocks. They need the elements in the rocks, as we all do, to
sustain life. Yes, rocks are needed to sustain life as we know it. Again, it is
all one biota.
So I beg you
please leave the box you live in and get outside onto a prairie or into a
woodland or into a mountain meadow or a wetland or onto the ocean and look
around and feel the life there – observe the plants, see the insects and birds,
imagine the bacteria and fungi, look for signs of animals, breathe in deeply
the air, absorb the warmth of the sun on your skin – melt a little inside your
heart – and then listen, be very, very quiet, stop thinking, set aside any
thoughts about decisions needing to be made or work needing to get done, and listen, listen, listen. As you listen
continue to observe all the detail around you, see the life, feel the life pulsing
in the organisms around you. Do not be afraid to touch it, even lay down in it
and talk to it.
And then you will
begin to experience the meaning of Leopold’s phrase…” one biota”.
And then hopefully
you will more likely concern yourself with the practices of conservation and
preservation. Do this not only to protect the natural beauty of the life around
you, but to be a person of ultimate integrity, a person who values the
preservation of your fellow beings in this thing I refer to as one biota over
economic gain or personal ego. So often humans have been driven by these latter
two selfish motivations and such pursuits have led not only to environmental
degradations of unimaginable proportions, such as the extinction of not only
species, but entire ecosystems. It has also led to destructive wars and
genocides around the planet, and of course extreme poverty and its associated
diseases and hunger.
And then too, maybe
all people of all races and cultures can begin to see that even among humans
there is only one biota. We all on this
planet are all engaged in this thing called life as one biota, we are all
connected, our commonalities are by far stronger than our differences… and if
we truly desire to be humans of dignity and integrity we will join with people
of all the world to build lives of value and worth, freedom, quality, peace and
joy.
I hope it will be
helpful to this process to remind ourselves constantly that on this planet
there is only ONE BIOTA.
In this context, it
becomes painfully clear why we cannot simply let what happened to a people who
called themselves the Kansa be forgotten.
They were, people, part of the one biota, living on the majestic
tallgrass prairie of a land now named for them… Kansas.
In a short time,
from 1825 to 1873 they were almost completely wiped off the planet by the
pursuit of other people for land and economic gain. And with them went many of the
animals and the plants of an ecosystem thousands of years in the making. The prairie flora and fauna mostly
disappeared, only to be found in remnants. The Kansa ended up living in a land that
came to be called Oklahoma. As members
of the one biota let us live in a way such biotic catastrophes never happen
again.
Thoughts of Glenn Thomas Fell, Emporia, Kansas.
Administrator's Note Below:
Glenn Fell, the author of the above essay and photographer of these photos is a Facebook friend of mine. I have followed his photos and informational notes on the tallgrass prairie in the Flint Hills of Eastern Kansas with great interest. I have always been fascinated by this biome since that I was a little kid, wandering the tallgrass prairies owned or rented by my father, just a little to the east of the Flint Hills in the Osage Cuestas of Eastern Kansas.
Recently, Glenn posted his essay, 'One Biota' on his Facebook page. Even though his example used is the tallgrass prairie of Eastern Kansas, there is a universal lesson to be learned from this example that can be applied to any place in the world, including Maryland. Glenn's message is an important one that I felt needs to be shared so that people have a better understanding of how people's decisions have affected our natural world and hopefully will give us pause before we make decisions that will be destructive to our natural world, which is the world that we all live in.
Although Aldo Leopold's book 'A Sand County Almanac' was written and published many years ago, it has many important observations and lessons about our natural world in it. It was assigned as required reading in one of my classes at Kansas State University many years ago. I was not thrilled when I started reading it; however, I did get hooked as I got deeper into the book and started to understand the universal message that does not change with time. I definitely recommend this book as one to add to your reading list.
Glenn Fell received his PhD from Penn State in Agronomy in 1984. Immediately following that he taught at an agricultural college in South Africa for 3 years. He also taught at Mid America Nazarene University in Olathe, Kansas for 14 years. Glenn grew up in Massachusetts. He is the regional leader for the Kansas Native Plant Society for the region encompassing the Flint Hills.
Glenn also started a non-profit organization called Jubilee Farms. The mission of Jubilee Farms is to train subsistence farmers globally in sustainable farming practices through people-centered environmentally healthy projects or partner with such programs, with the aim of ending the hunger of all children. http://www.jubileefarms.org/about
If you are interested in viewing a collection of Glenn's poems, essays and photos, you can do this by viewing his personal blog at www.wapatangawilds.org. I would like to thank Glenn for allowing us to share his essay on our Blogger website.
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