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>https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/08/03/my-town-calls-my-lawn-a-nuisance-but-i-still-refuse-to-mow-it/?tid=HP_opinion > >My town calls my lawn ‘a nuisance.’ But I still refuse to >mow it. > > Sarah Baker and her partner stand in their yard outside >Alexandria, Ohio. Town officials have declared it “a >nuisance.” (Sarah Baker) > >A mutilated garter snake, a sliced frog and countless slashed >grasshoppers. That was the scene of carnage in my yard in >September, after local officials ordered me to mow my >overgrown lawn or be fined $1,000. Three months earlier, I had >stopped mowing my nearly one acre of country land in a rural >Ohio town. A diverse potpourri of plants began to flourish, >and a rich assortment of insects and animals followed. I had >essentially grown a working ecosystem, one that had been >waiting for the chance to emerge. > >So this season, I took a stand and refused to mow at all. > >In June, my partner and I received an official written warning >from the trustee board of St. Albans Township, stating that >our yard had become “a nuisance.” Ohio law allows local >governments to control any vegetation on private property that >they deem a nuisance, after a seven-day warning to the >property owners. But the law does not define what “a >nuisance” is, effectively giving local leaders the power to >remove whatever grass or plants offend them. In our case, the >trustees decided that our lawn was too tall and thick and >would attract “nuisance animals” such as “snakes and >rodents.” If we didn’t cut it, they would hire someone to >do so and bring law enforcement with them. > >But the main point of growing a natural yard is to attract >wildlife and build a self-regulating environment. The >un-mowed plants in our yard attract plant-eating bugs and >rodents, which in turn attract birds, bats, toads and garter >snakes that eat them. Then hawks fly in to eat the snakes. >Seeing all this life emerge in just one growing season made me >realize just how much nature manicured lawns displace and >disrupt. > >There are 40.5 million acres of lawn in the United States, >more than double the size of the country’s largest national >forest. We disconnect ourselves from wildlife habitat loss by >viewing it as a problem caused by industry and agriculture. >But lawns are our biggest “crop,” beating out corn, wheat >and fruit combined. Habitat loss isn’t a problem happening >out there somewhere; it’s happening in our own back yards. > >This has serious consequences. About 95 percent of the natural >landscape in the lower 48 states has been developed into >cities, suburbs and farmland. Meanwhile, the global population >of vertebrate animals, from birds to fish, has been cut in >half during the past four decades. Honey bees, which we depend >on to pollinate our fruits and other crops, have been dying >off at an unsustainable rate. Because one in three bites of >food you take requires a pollinating insect to produce it, >their rapid decline is a threat to humanity. Monarch >butterflies have been even more affected, with their numbers >dropping 90 percent since the 1990s. Butterflies are an >important part of the food chain, so ecologists have long used >them to measure the health of ecosystems. > >Nature preserves and parks are not enough to fix the problem; >much of wildlife is migratory and needs continuous habitat to >thrive. Natural yards can act as bridges between the larger >natural spaces. > >>having any] > >Habitat loss isn’t the only consequence; maintaining a mowed >and fertilized lawn also pollutes the air, water and soil. The >emissions from lawnmowers and other garden equipment are >responsible for more than 5 percent of urban air pollution. An >hour of gas-powered lawn mowing produces as much pollution as >four hours of driving a car. Americans use 800 million gallons >of gas every year for lawn equipment, and 17 million gallons >are spilled while refueling mowers — more than was leaked by >the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. Homeowners use up to 10 >times more chemicals per acre on their lawns than farmers use >on crops, chemicals that can end up in drinking water and >waterways. > >I decided to tackle the issue by letting my yard grow wild, >and I’m not alone. Homeowners across the country have >latched on to the natural lawn and “no mow” movement. > >At first I felt guilty. The stigma that comes with the look of >an un-mowed lawn was hard to push through (no pun intended). I >was afraid of what people would think, because Americans have >been deeply conditioned to see their manicured lawns as status >symbols. But after we started explaining to people why we had >stopped mowing, they were much less critical. If we allow >ourselves to truly see a mowed lawn for what it is — a green >desert that provides no food or shelter for wildlife — we >can re-condition ourselves to take pride in not mowing. > >For me, growing a natural lawn doesn’t mean just letting it >go. I spend a lot of time weeding out invasive, non-native >plants — like thistles, burdock and garlic mustard — that >can take over and create a destructive monoculture of their >own. But I also think it is wrong to vilify all invasive >plants before we fully understand them. After all, a weed is >just “a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered,” > Ralph Waldo Emerson said. > >I’ve been a gardener for years, but since I stopped mowing, >I not only feel more connected to nature, I also see the >interconnectedness in nature. Never before have I had so few >pests in my vegetable garden thanks to my yard’s newfound >biodiversity, including predators that keeps crop-damaging >bugs in check. When you stop mowing, you get it; you not only >see first-hand all the nature that we have lost start to come >back, you get to interact with it. > >To prevent the mowing company hired by my township from coming >in and flattening everything, my partner and I used a scythe >to cut the height of our lawn down to 8 inches. The trustees >were satisfied enough to call off the abatement of our lawn >for now. It was a compromise, but it bought us some time to >figure out our next move. > >People should be allowed to live out their values on their own >property as long as they are not causing a true nuisance that >hinders their neighbors’ use of their own properties. In >May, the White House released a strategy to protect >pollinators by increasing wildlife habitat. But while the >report encourages homeowners to set aside natural habitat for >wildlife, it offers them no legal support to do so. We need >local regulations of private lawns to reflect science, not the >whims of town officials. They should be developed in >consultation with ecologists and botanists, to set standards >for natural yards that are safe and healthy for both humans >and wildlife. > >Society needs to adjust its cultural norms on lawn aesthetics. >For the health of the planet, and for our own health, we need >to start letting nature dictate how we design our outdoor >spaces. We need to reassess how much mowed space we really >need. By the size of most people’s lawns in my area, you’d >think they were hosting a weekly lacrosse match. But the only >time I ever really see them on their lawns is when they are >mowing them. > >Instead of putting nature in its place, we need to find our >place in nature. Local officials have told us countless times >that our lawn looks bad and is a nuisance. In one public >meeting, a brave young boy, Max Burton, stood up and told our >critics, “What you are saying is that life itself is a >nuisance.” As the planet’s environmental problems mount, >the real nuisances are mowed lawns and the laws that enforce >them
------------------- I wanna go to where the martyrs went the brown figures on the walls of my apart-a-ment...
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