What do you do for planning sustainability for bus system?
Who do you usually contact with for projects to enhance sustainability in C-U transit district?
What do Prairie Rivers Network measures when Prairie Rivers Network is on the progress of making new water policy?
How can you describe your work at the Prairie Rivers Network?
How can you describe your work at the C-U Transit District?
Suyeon Yang
11/13/14
Draft for essay 4
South Korea has a lot of diversity in a small peninsular. Although its place is limited by lack of space and protection on wildlife, diversity is still remained. The fauna of Korea is based on mountainous landscape, also forests make up 65% of land. According to zoologists, there are more than 130 freshwater fish, 112 breeding birds, 49 mammals and 14 reptiles and amphibians in Korea. Because of reduction of forest area, Korea lost many species, especially bear wild boar, deer, and lynx that habitat in highland. Those species mostly are lost by habitat destruction due to agriculture. Korean farmers usually don’t like those species because they eat their crops; however, it is an unfortunate cycle: animals have no choice but eating crops in farmer’s land because their foods and resources are gone as people destroying their habitats. Many forests are fragmented with distant each other. Gotjawal forest and Hallasan mountains are natural forests. Migratory water fowl, cranes, herons, and other birds live on the plains, usually rice plains. Noxious insects and household pests infest the warmer regions, and aquatic life is generally infected with parasites.
In Korea, Jeju Island is my all-time favorite place. The Island is a 713 sq miles Island with 605,524 population. It is created by volcanic activity and has many biodiversity because of great preservation of the island’s ecosystem except a recent development on landscape due to increase of building infrastructure relating to tourism. I visit this tropical island every summer and winter, and it might be a vacation place for many people; however, I consider this place as my second home since I go there many times during summer and winter. Halla ecological forest, a 196 hectares patch of land, is on Yonggangsan Mountain is home to 288,000 trees representing 333 indigenous plant species. Whenever I visit Jeju Island, I always go for a walk to walking trails in this area. Oreum (parasitic volcano) is one of the unique characteristics of landscape in Jeju. In that place, I encounter with badger many times. Small and Brownish-grey fur is distinctive-looking. Not only I see the badger, but also I see red-head cranes. They are the migratory birds, and they always come in winter time. I see them on my grandparent’s farmland. They have beautiful white fur with little bit of red fur on their head. They walk gracefully and actually taller than you can think of a size of usual crane. They eat remnants of crops, so my grandparents took me to their fields from my childhood for me to see this crane come and leave. Once, I went up closely to them. They didn’t move since I guess they knew I’m not going to do anything harmful to them. I observed them for a while and amazed with their beauty.
Pigeons have been my spirit animal in a city. I’ve been living in a city almost for my entire life. After I studied abroad in the U.S., I saw more deer and squirrels in my surroundings since the places I stayed in the U.S. are rural area or suburban area. I think about pigeons are the lovely birds instead of what others think about them — dirty and annoying animals that takes away humans’ food. When I live in Seoul, Korea, I see them everywhere in a city since I was young. Once a pigeon came into my home which was an apartment. I’ve never had a pet before I raised this lost pigeon. My parents weren’t happy about this pigeon as their thinking was that they are unhygienic and obnoxious. We tried to let him out from our house, but the pigeon didn’t try to get out. I begged my parents that I want to raise this pigeon, so they agreed after a long pondering. I had a personal connection with this pigeon, and that was the first moment in my life that I had some kind of connection with an animal. I fed the pigeon and sometimes observed this animal. So whenever I see them in Champaign or Chicago area accidently, I’m happy to see them. Pigeon are easily recognizable and wide spread. Usually, they got grey and brown color; however, the ones I saw in Korea and urban areas in U.S are grey. They eat pretty much everything, but usually the ones in the wild eat fruits.
By passing by the southeast part of the U of I campus, a totally different scenery pops out after a few minutes driving to the U of I Sustainable Student Farm where is at the corner of Lincoln Avenue at Windsor road. A sign saying Woody Perennial Polyculture research site is on the fence door of the farm. Over the fence, there are 30 to 35 diversified crops that are aligned uniformly on a small 80 acres of farm land. The farm welcomes visitors with fresh and earthy air, nearly 10,000 square feet of year round plastic greenhouse-looking high tunnels, and green vegetables on healthy soil.
Knowing where your food comes from is important matter for this century of overuse the word “organic and locally grown food”. What does it exactly mean by it? The U of I Sustainable Student Farm answers that question. The farm is a sustainable and small-scale production supplying residence dining hall facilities fresh organic ingredients. These locally grown foods are produced with organic farming techniques such as crop rotations, composting, and small spraying with bio-rational products which gives minimal impacts on environment. Zach Grant, a manager director and instructor at the U of I Sustainable Student Farm, said that “fifteen percent of our sell goes directly to the campus, and rest of the selling products goes to the Farmer’s market on the quad on every Thursday. Not only connecting their products to the campus dining services, the farm connects community by serving as a teaching place for crop sciences at the University and lively educational place for students to have opportunity of learning how to farm locally and sustainably. Grant is one of the educators who advocates community members and students in U of I about sustainable farming through giving a general tour.
“The problems are dining hall using complete processed foods like a can tomatoes because farm foods are too fresh to use which is inefficient. And there is a mismatch between seasons and foods, and dining halls follow the demands of students who want year round food that isn’t seasonal” said Zach and continued, “It is financially tricky to maintain this farming system, and in the winter break, there are less students around on campus, so there are less volunteers to harvest crops and manage farm in the healthy status. In the summer break, also there are less volunteers so even though the farm is productive, the harvest is hard to be efficient.” Also, a small and diversified farm requires intensive labor.
Furthermore, financially CSA, Community Supporter Agriculture, are one of the shareholders. Although this farm isn’t certified by USDA officers that it needs registration and food safety plan to prove record, the farm itself follows the manual of sustainable farming. A small farm is immune to safety, and big farm isn’t safe since it is close to animal farms. Grant also pointed out the fact that there is a hidden cost beyond the food price in a grocery store. Globalized farming is hidden by conventional system, and organic farmers are marginalized and ignored, but he said that it shouldn’t happen because better future of healthy food resources comes from consumers’ choices. If consumers choose to purchase non-organic foods because they are cheaper than the organic foods, there will be a consequence of flourish of industrial agriculture, but if consumers choose to purchase organic and local foods, local farmers would have much profits to expand their business.
Contrasting to industrialized frozen foods, strawberries in our farm are hand-picked. Half of the area has green grass covered on crops, and using legumes are symbiotic that gives nitrogen fixation. Half of the farm is consisted of cash crop mostly tomatoes. Rotating the farm’s soil with cash crops and legumes is to get nutritious soil. Tomatoes died from the frost season but survived by using high-tunnel. The farm switches between warm season crop and winter season crops. Greenhouse kit has no heating system but only manual control temperature. Heat input is from the sun which is using micro climate which is a protection from early frost. 15ºF is the average temperature in this tunnel.
The farm is made for connection with students and faculties with academic and experimental sense of learning. The development of this farm which is an year-round production is splendid for organic and sustainable way of farming.
I’ve grown with my parents who highly support organic and healthy food system. My dad owns a distribution company for livestock such as chickens and pigs, and it is conscious about process of commercializing these livestock. He wanted to shift the framework of raising livestock too. He doesn’t own any farm, but he chooses the farm that has moral philosophy to run his business. The farm that he chose to get livestock has an organic way of raising their livestock which lets chickens and pigs to be raised in free-range environment. He always told me about the environmental impacts related with the industrial food system. Since they gain a lot of weight with getting fed by a high-calorie and grain-based diet, they would have massive amount of waste. The waste of industrialized pigs and chickens is concentrated in landscape and water source, so it would be an environmental problem. Also, morally it is inhumane to restrict a boundary of livestock’s movement. From this personal background, I realized how meat packing industry and industrial agricultural practices can be detrimental to environment because it also produces a lot of carbon dioxide which leads to global warming. The carbon dioxide is released from the gases and manure of livestock, and gases from livestock is one of the huge factors of world’s carbon emission.
After having this knowledge, I’ve usually been curious about where my food comes from. I was conscious whether food source comes from the industrialized process or organic one. I didn’t investigate every source I can find, but I thought that it is important to at least be aware of the environmental footprints from me eating meat. I give small but also significant impact on environment because as an individual consumer, I can decide what products I would purchase. Every decision of choosing which meat I should talk is influential to environment.
On a cloudy and crisp fall morning, I had a chance to visit a prairie at the Florida & Orchard for my environmental writing class. The prairie was like a magical ocean that consisted of waves of prairie flora. A swirl of colorful native prairie plants exuded sweet and earthy scent. A yellow goldenrod among these plants had sharp-edged petals, which were dangling on the top of its tall stem. Gently drifted through chilly winds, spicy aroma of the goldenrod awakened my senses.
Not only the goldenrod but also other thirty prairie plants firmly stood on rich soil called loess that was formed by wind action, and those plants filled the 2.7-acre of a designated prairie zone at the southwest corner of Florida Avenue and Orchard Street. This type of a prairie zone is not prevalent in Illinois anymore. Illinois once had the large and treeless prairie landscape before the development of row-crop agriculture. The original terrain was formed by remnants and materials from glacier melting. These remnants were blown by west winds and landed on dry soil after the Wisconsin Glacial Episode, happened 15,000 years ago (Ellis 6).
After entering the prairie at the Florida & Orchard, my classmates and I were guided to a tour of the prairie by Ken Robertson, a botanist with the Illinois Natural History Survey wearing a light creamy colored jacket. While rubbing his chin with white beard, Ken said with a warm smile, “About 60% of the landscape of Illinois was used to be a prairie. The UIUC is the midst of the Grand Prairies, but the Champaign County currently has only one acre of land that preserves a fully natural prairie. The destruction of the natural prairie was driven by urban and agricultural use of the lands” (Robertson). To restore a reputation of Illinois as “The Prairie State”, on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus various prairies in different sizes and characteristics other than the prairie at the Florida & Orchard were made to achieve the short-term sustainable landscape projects by planting native species. These prairies on campus came through due to endeavors of faculties, students, a student organization such as the Red Bison, and volunteers who helped weeding out and seedling prairie plants. A prairie has to be weed-free to be healthy in a constant pace since weed would shade prairie plants and suck up nutrient (Ellis 18). The NRB Prairie Patch, a small prairie in front of the Natural Resources Building and behind the Pennsylvania Avenue, has less prairie species but maintain sustainability within its small area, and prairie plants absorb carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide from the atmosphere. At the first sight, prairies might look boring; however, they are highly valuable as they would bring another type of stable biodiversity. It has many plants, animals, birds, and insects even within a small-size prairie.
I felt peaceful by simply walking in the treeless prairie with tall grasses and prairie plants. A combination of the prairie plants — red cardinal flower, yellow black-eyed Susan which looked like a sunflower, and purple cone flower — swayed back and forth with the winds. I picked up one of the prairie plants, coreopsis tripteris, a bright yellow flower that had refreshing scent, which was like the smell of fusion of crushed apples, citruses, and lemons. This pleasant scent contrasted with rough texture of its leaf. Contrasting to coreopsis tripteris’ texture of the leaf, the texture of raisin-colored bee balm’s seed heads was like a spongy socked with water. As the bee balm’s seed heads, moisturized with the early morning rain, looked like coral reefs heads, they were striking among all the other prairie plants. When I crushed bee balm’s leaves, I put my nose close to them, and I smelled the bitter and herby scent.
This amazing and peaceful trip to the prairie zone ended, and I went back to my busy life as a college student. My understanding about prairie expanded. Before I went to the prairie, I considered prairie as an ecosystem without dynamics. However, after this experience I realized that prairie is a fluid ecosystem that provides beautiful scenery that visitors can get away from tedious and stressful daily life by smelling earthy and delightful scent from prairie plants and appreciating the scenery. Prairie is not just the landscape that is filled with grass. Believe me. It is worthwhile to enjoy the dazzling prairie plants by visiting just around the corner of the Pennsylvania Avenue.
< Works cited >
Ellis, James. “Chapter 3: Understanding Prairie in the Prairie State.” Illinois Master Naturalist, Curriculum Guide: 6, 18. Print.
[Robertson, Ken]. Personal interview. [9/11/14].
Suyeon Yang
9/16/14
Environmental Writing: Paper 1 assignment
Although there was not much berry or fruit in the prairie, native prairie plants exuded their own smells. Gently drifting along a wind, goldenrod’s yellow sharp-edged petals were dangling on the top of tall stems and carrying sheer licorice aroma. Its spicy smell wasn’t that pungent; however, I realized I was in the prairie after I smelled it. Although usually prairie plants don’t have that much of strong smell, as the prairie plants were concentrated in this area, the scent spread.
Not only goldenrod but also other prairie plants firmly standing filled the 2.7-acre of designated prairie zone at the southwest corner of Florida Avenue and Orchard Street. By looking at the healthy-looking but tiny prairie restoration spot with a few grasses but 160 different types of prairies species, I thought that it is possible to conserve a form of prairie even though the restoration might start with a small scale. It took enormous time and efforts to make this scenery happened because prairie needs to be weed-free, and its soil has to be as undisturbed as possible (Ellis 18). Especially, this orchard required many volunteers to reduce weeds and dandelions since prairie species needed spaces to get sunlight and nutrients that would help them to grow steadily and healthy. Also, weeds can shade prairie plants, but this prairie orchard is no-mow zone since native prairie species were planted.
“The state of Illinois’ 60% of landscape was used to be prairie, and UIUC is midst of the Grand Prairies, but Champaign County has only 1 acre of fully natural prairie land at an extreme north-side. The destruction for natural prairie was because of urban and agricultural use of lands,” said Don Roberson, a retired Illinois Nature Center research affiliate and also was charged in national prairie project. To continue the legacy of Prairie State, Don Roberson and many volunteers from the Red Bison, a student organization which weeds and maintains the prairie contributed to keep up with healthy condition of this prairie zone. While listening to him, I glanced at soil that is black and rich, full of legumes, which add nitrogen – good nutrients to prairie soil – to the land. The soil here was from glacier melting happened 15,000 years ago. Glaciers melted, and the prairie was formed by remnants and materials blown by west wind. Fine soil from those materials is called loess soils. (Ellis 6).
Walking through tall grasses and prairie plants, the absence of trees allow me to observe the world of peacefulness. At a quick glance prairies might look empty and useless to someone; however, it has splendid values that would drive another type of stable biodiversity. It has plants, animals, birds, and insects even within a small-scale prairie. Another interesting about this prairie was that this area was somehow artificial in a way that the restoration was controlled by growing and transplanting seedlings, but when I saw prairie plants were reacting by east blowing wind as they leaned eastward. I could see people who contribute to restoration don’t try to control the whole system of prairie zone, but they rather leave it naturally after setting up the environment of prairie and maintain its healthy status.
A mix of red, yellow, purple, and white prairie plants swayed with the fall breeze. They harmonized with the sound of a prairie bird. I picked up one of the flowers, coreopsis tripteris, bright yellow long and thin-leaves flowers. Their refreshing smell of the fuse of crushed apple, citrus, and lemon fit with its sunflower-like appearance. Its pleasant and soft scent contrasts with its rough leaf cover. Rosin weed has also rough and wide leave having a sharp edge. Raisin-colored seed heads were adjacent to rosin weeds. When I touched them, I could feel spongy texture. These blackish brown plants were moisture with rain that came early in the morning. Funky-looking of seed heads popped out among all the other plants as they looked like baby coral reefs. With its distinguishable looking, their leaves got bitter and herby smell that was like Thyme when I crushed them into pieces.
Its prairie zone is a sustainable landscape because it absorbs CO2, methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) from the atmosphere, and it is different from other types of ecological landscape as it has deep-rooted plants. This kind of landscape is consisted with native plants which don’t bring much hardship on maintenance. This amazing trip to prairie zone widened my thought about planting. Before I went there, I thought that simply prairie could be preserved without tremendous efforts, but after I’ve been there, I realized that prairies were sensitive ecological system that provides beautiful scenery and healthy ecosystem.
9/9/14
1) How abiotic and biotic factors combine (interact) together to make a prairie with a good condition?
2) What are the main factors of losing and fragmentation of habitat of grassland birds?
3) Why annual fire on prairie is beneficial for a sustainable prairie?
4) What is one of the ways to improve the condition of a prairie as being a college student?
5) Glacial beginnings have arranged a basic structure of a prairie (composition, vegetation types, and landscape). How did it shape a prairie in Illinois now?
6) Why grasslands’ soil is great for agriculture (prairies are the regions where about 70% of the food production take place)?
7) List six main types of prairies in Illinois?
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