‘Earth does not belong to us, we belong to earth.’
The above quote is fundamentally true, but we often times totally forget it. This is the reason why we are fighting such a massive battle to protect our planet from issues like global warming, imbalance in nature due to human activities like deforestation and more.
World Earth Day is one such event that’s celebrated to embrace the fact that earth needs our help. Now. And we must do our best to make the maximum number of people aware of this fact.
Talking about Earth Day, Oregon has got a really special place where you ought to be to celebrate this occasion. We are talking about the Columbia River Gorge – the place which is known amongst hiking enthusiasts as a place where spring wildflowers make the spring season beautifully special. After all, we’ve all heard another quote – “Think globally, act locally.”
One interesting factoid of the special things about ‘The Gorge’, which not many people are aware of, is that the wildflowers in this region are strategically grown to take care of invasive weeds. These weeds, if not controlled, could lead to damage in the region’s ecosystem. In the words of Sara Woods, the Stewardship Coordinator for Friends of Columbia Gorge Land Trust, “it’s quite ephemeral. It goes from nothing to everything and then goes away really quick.”
She continues, “The problem is that weeds outcompete the native species. For example, the yellow star thistle is one non-native that’s spread throughout the Gorge because it has not been contained. It comes up each spring, flowers and “shoots a deep taproot into the soil that has access to more water for longer, which allows the plants to grow larger, have more flowers and put out seed from late spring to early winter.”
This leads to the rise of monoculture i.e. only a single species; which lowers the biodiversity in the region.
On this Earth Day, Friends of Columbia Gorge Land Trust is organizing an event to make people aware about the benefits of conserving biodiversity and how they can do it on their personal level. As part the Earth Day event, there will be a weekend long celebration which will include:
- Boot Brush Kick-off Event at Mosier Plateau Trail
- Cascade Locks Earth Day Cleanup
- Earth Day Tree Planting @Lewis & Clark State Recreation Site
- Earth Day Solve at Milo McIver State Park
- Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail Clean-up
All these events are going to be hosted across the weekend (22-23 April, 2017). So if you are interested in working towards making the earth a better place to live, and take care of our planet you can go ahead and be part of these events.
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