On the map, I discovered an expansive patchwork quilt, dominated by a dreary white (developed areas), with pockets of red (population centers), criss-crossed with yellow stitching (interstates), and dappled with green splotches ranging from itsy bitsy to quite large. I used to scoff at the real value of those little fragments of county and city parks, as artificial imitations of nature, engineered to provide shade and refuges for dog-walking suburbites.
If my senior thesis taught me little else, however, it taught me that larger is not always better, and looking at the biological value of an area based solely on its size is myopic. As I am an the brink of my college career in Minnesota, teetering on the meniscus of my liberal arts education, I seek refuge in our dear Cowling Arboretum with its oak savanna, restored prairie, pine plantation, and liana-laden floodplain. The arboretum was established in the 1920s by a far-seeing president and professor, and it now stretches 880 glorious acres through Rice and Goodhue Counties, in stark contrast to the surrounding matrix of corn, soybean, and sod farms. I spend an hour, five days a week, traversing its paths at a loping run, emulating the meditative feeling of the open road that I miss so much when I am stationary.
The Arb, as we affectionately call it, is full to the brim with iridescent migratory birds right now, most visually striking Baltimore Orioles and Scarlet Tanagers. Our little Arb is also a refuge for threatened prairie birds, driven to dwindling populations in a landscape of intense farming. We have a healthy population of deer and small mammals, frogs in the marshes, insect of unmeasured diversity and abundance, and a restored population of wildflowers in the forest and prairies. The Arb isn’t an Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or a Pisgah National Forest. But it is analogous to Duke Forest or Eno River State Park. And the value of little pockets of protected vegetation, even restored landscapes like the Arb, gives me a lot of hope for the future of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. A corridor across the state of North Carolina would be invaluable not only ecologically, but also recreationally and as an educational tool to connect people to the natural world. Even these little splotches of green on the landscape make a big difference.
