Have you heard of the Homegrown National Park Movement? The name was coined by cofounder Professor Doug Tallamy to describe a new culture where we all make a difference in our habitats. If you would like to learn more about this movement, be sure to register for a special Poolesville Seniors event at 7:00 pm on September 23rd in Town Hall.
“What’s the Rush?” is a video featuring Professor Doug Tallamy that focuses on the science-based solution to the biodiversity crisis. He emphasizes the importance of creating native habitat in our yards to restore nature and connect with the environment. The event is a grassroots effort to raise awareness and encourage action towards ecological landscaping. Attendees can expect to learn about the Homegrown National Park movement, how to register their property on the map, and the impact of small changes in their yard on biodiversity.
Local ecosystems are losing large and growing numbers of species. This reduces their ability to provide the ecosystem services we all rely on. We all depend on these crucial ecosystem services like clean air and water, flood control, pollination for our food, pest control, and carbon storage. Regenerating biodiversity restores productive, healthy ecosystems.
You can have fun becoming a biodiversity hero while building a future that is full of the plants and animals which sustain us. Anyone can be part of this movement – individuals, businesses, nonprofits, farms, schools, places of worship, and more. It’s easy, it’s free, and no experience is needed! The first step is adding native plants and removing invasive ones everywhere that we live, work, learn, pray, and play.
A native plant is a species that naturally occurs within a specific ecosystem (without human intervention) and shares an evolutionary history with the other species in that area. These relationships make them crucial for the health and productivity of that ecosystem. Without them, ecosystem services collapse, threatening the systems our communities depend on to survive.
Our National Parks, no matter how grand in scale, are too small and separated from one another to preserve (native) species to the levels needed. The concept for Homegrown National Park is a bottom-up call-to-action to restore habitat where we live and work, and to some extent where we farm and graze, and extend national parks to our yards and communities.”
Stay for a panel discussion and Q&A session with Jason Gedeik, Adult Education Manager at Brookside Gardens; and Kathy Jentz is editor and publisher of Washington Gardener Magazine.