THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 26, 1995 TAG: 9505260648
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
My feeling for saving other life forms - birds, insects, mosses - has always been half apologetic.
They are so minuscule alongside us.
My impulse for them is almost superstitious, one old Powhatan might have had in his Eden.
I cherish our planet's fellow travelers for themselves because they're alive and intricate.
Now along comes a book that gives a solid answer for those who hold that these other beings must offer, if they are to survive, some practical advantage for us.
One among many benefits they extend is cited by William K. Stevens, author of ``Miracle Under the Oaks, The Revival of Nature in America.'' The biosphere in which human life originated and to which it remains linked for its survival is a web of energy exchanges, he says. ``Remove all insects and other invertebrates from the face of the earth, for instance, and the global ecosystem would collapse,'' he writes.
``Humans would probably last only a few months before being extinguished forever. In this sense, humans need the rest of the biosphere far more than it needs them: Remove people from the earth, and the rest of the biosphere would go on quite handsomely.''
(Tell that to Rush Limbaugh and listen as he sinks, bellowing, into the tar pits of ignorance.)
On the way to becoming science writer for The New York Times, Stevens made a brilliant passage through the Virginian-Pilot, winning within five years three Slover Awards, the highest accolade the Pilot bestows.
He will speak Wednesday at 8 p.m. at the Hermitage Foundation on North Shore Road. Tickets are $5, $3.50 for students. For reservations, call 423-2052.
Earlier that day, 1 to 2:30 p.m., Stevens will be at Prince Books to sign copies.
In ``Miracle Under the Oaks,'' Stevens recounts how a group of amateur ecologists uncovered remnants of a long lost ecosystem on an abandoned tract of wasteland 30 minutes from Chicago's Loop.
On the plains of the Midwest, the long grasses of prairies and lush savannahs were plowed under for crops, but rare plants remained amid urban debris along the north branch of the Chicago River.
It was as if the amateurs were putting Humpty Dumpty together as they scoured the countryside for seeds and specimens.
The north branch project evolved by 1993 into a network of more than 5,000 volunteers working on more than 200 Illinois sites covering nearly 30,000 acres, more than half in metropolitan Chicago.
It has become a spearhead of a national movement as biologists recognize restoration as an essential weapon in the struggle to head off the possibility of mass extinction and collapse of ecosystems.
Stevens makes the story as exciting as a well-told novel of suspense. by CNB