Despite what developers will tell you about restoration, she says, once a piece of land is graded, the biologic organisms and understructure of the soil are destroyed. Spot dozing is common across the county, even on land that is supposedly protected. Much of this destruction is done out of expediency and ignorance. One of my students told me that every time she learns the name of a plant, she feels as if she is meeting someone new. Giving a name to something is a way of knowing it.
Most young people grow up with no knowledge of native plants and animals.
With the exception of a few good teachers, school districts ignore local natural history. You know, in three years coming here, I have never seen kids playing here, except on the bike path. She bends to touch a leaf that looks like a slender cat's paw. Some lichen, a complex organism of symbiotic fungus and algae, also feeds nitrogen to its neighbors. It can live for more than a century.