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Why do humans defy their natural survival instincts regarding the environment?

Humans ignore environment at their peril

There's something very curious about the human species that certainly defies what living creatures are supposedly born with, the instinct to survive. Whether the technique is through flight, fear or fighting, generally the biological goal of life is to stay alive and to keep future generations alive. For example, probably no creature is fiercer than a mother protecting her young. So if humans, with our large brains, show signs of not following a survival instinct, nor parenting toward that goal, it seems logical to assume something's seriously messed up somewhere. Allowing our natural environmental systems to deteriorate runs counter to what instinct should demand of us for ourselves and our children and their children.

Perhaps one of the most blatant forms of environmental destruction is how we treat our soil, which provides us with forests, fiber and food. Without water in soil, vegetation cannot survive and without photosynthesis in plants on land and phytoplankton on the ocean's surface, carbon dioxide cannot be exchanged for oxygen. We were supposed to have learned these cycles in school. What has not happened in schools, nor obviously in churches, industries, businesses, politics, or in our individual lives, is an internalized priority for protection, no matter the costs, of the basics of survival: soil, water and air.

Fran Alexander is a Fayetteville resident with a longstanding interest in the environment and an opinion on almost anything else. Email her at fran@deane-alexande….

For example, land is generally not analyzed for how it functions in the grand scheme of its location in the physical world, but instead is examined for how much market value it has. Zones speak to human activities in land use instead of how changes to land may affect an entire region's environmental health. A local case in point with a politically and environmentally painful history is the Wilson Springs area, which lies southwest of Sam's Club in Fayetteville.

Over a decade ago, the local activists, who tried long and hard to preserve almost 300 acres the city once owned at Wilson Springs, understood that wetlands function as sponges to slow down and hold water, gradually releasing it into streams, rivers and the water table. But, only about a third of that property was eventually saved from development, when it was sold by the city. Wilson Springs Preserve containing 122 acres is now held by the Northwest Arkansas Land Trust, which, with restoration guidance and help from Audubon Arkansas, has the onerous task of rescuing this land's integrity.

Wresting the native vegetation, wildlife and streams away from the massive overgrowth of invasive species is, and will always be, one of the greatest botanical challenges to returning this tall grass prairie soil to its naturally functioning role as perennial wetland. One of the last remnants of prairie in Northwest Arkansas, this parcel is also threatened from development squeezing in on all sides. Run-off from streets, commercial parking lots, residential yards, as well I-49, drains onto this land. Perhaps worse, there are crucial seasonal wetland properties surrounding the preserve that provide habitat and food for critters that are not under protection. Much of this has already been filled and built on.

Locations in Wilson Springs, Cave Springs, Elm Springs and Mt. Kessler were a few of the open spaces recently visited by attendees of meetings held by the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission's project to develop an Open Space Plan. Throughout several months this year, planners are asking for input from organizations and individuals about places in our part of the state, which are important environmentally, as well as historically and culturally. If or when the population continues to grow and open spaces continue to shrink or disappear, perhaps we can set about to find ways for these places to survive instead. [To take part in this process and to fill out an important public comments form, click "participate" at: www.nwaopenspace.com.]

Henry David Thoreau, who died 153 years ago, understood ponds, forests and towns, and his phrase, "...that in Wildness is the preservation of the World," gives us his most famous notion about existence. Wildness was becoming harder to find even in his day, but he could see that natural "wild" systems sustain us physically and psychologically.

If we are to continue to have basic resources to preserve us in this place we have chosen to live, we must recognize and protect what is left. It's really that simple. The hard part is acknowledging the reality of what we are doing to our environment and turning our behavior around toward survival instead of the direction we've been going.

Fran Alexander is a Fayetteville resident with a longstanding interest in the environment and an opinion on almost anything else. Email her at [email protected].

Commentary on 03/24/2015

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