Preserving our Natural World

The American Indians believed in leaving the land as they found it. It is a worthy endeavor to keep this tradition going. Whether we are hiking in native areas, horseback riding or any activity that would take us into native areas we need to take care not to bring non-native seeds on our clothing.

The following series of articles is taken from a study that was performed and printed in the Journal of Environmental Management "Testing the capacity of clothing to act as a vector for non-native seed in protected areas." by Ann Mount, Catherine Marina Pickering.

Although humans are a major mechanism for short and long distance seed dispersal, there is limited research testing clothing as a vector. The effect of different types of material (sports vs hiking socks), or different items of clothing (boots, socks, laces vs legs) or the same item (socks) worn in different places on seed composition were assessed in Kosciuszko National Park, Australia. Data was analyzed using Repeated Measures ANOVA, independent and paired t-tests, Multi-dimensional Scaling Ordinations and Analysis of Similarity. A total of 24,776 seeds from 70 taxa were collected from the 207 pieces of clothing sampled, with seed identified from 31 native and 19 non-native species. Socks worn off-track collected more native seeds while those worn on roadsides collected more non-native seeds. Sports socks collected a greater diversity of seeds and more native seeds than hiking socks. Boots, uncovered socks and laces collect more seeds than covered socks and laces, resulting in 17% fewer seeds collected when wearing trousers. With seeds from over 179 species (134 recognized weeds) collected on clothing in this,
and nine other studies, it is clear that clothing contributes to unintended human mediated seed
dispersal, including for many invasive species.

1. Introduction
Anthropogenic mass movement of species is one of the greatest environmental challenges faced by conservation organizations (WRI, 1992; IUCN, 2000). Human activities are an important mechanism for long distance dispersal of plants and animals including invasive species Human mediated dispersal of plants can be deliberate for agricultural and ornamental purposes (Groves et al., 2005; Benvenuti, 2007), or accidental such as through agricultural seed contamination in: soil (Rejmanek, 2000; Benvenuti, 2007), garden waste (Groves et al., 2005; Hulme, 2006), on equipment or even on clothing (Table 1). Both deliberate and accidental introductions have dramatically increased the scale and rate at which plants are dispersed, including many invasive species (Reichard and Hamilton, 1997; Groves et al., 2005; Wichmann
et al., 2009). Limiting human mediated dispersal of non-native plants is important, particularly when they are invasive. Invasive plants can adversely affect flora and fauna, prevent the recruitment of native plants, alter hydrology and nutrient content of soils, change fire regimes, and affect fauna that use the plants for food and habitat (Csurhes and Edwards,1998; Williams andWest, 2000; Mayers and Bazely, 2003). Although there is renewed interest in understanding
the invasive process, there is still limited research on the initial dispersal of species, particularly empirical studies (Puth and Post, 2005). For example out of 873 recent articles examining the process of invasion of exotic species, only 15 were empirical studies examining the initial dispersal of species in terrestrial systems. The initial step in unintended human mediated seed dispersal is seed attachment. Although seeds are commonly observed on socks, laces, boots and trousers there is limited empirical data on clothing as a seed vector (Table 1). The authors have only found nine published empirical studies, and only three involved statistical testing
of hypothesis. Seven studies examined seed attached to shoes and/or boots, four examined socks, two examined laces and four examined seed on trousers. Only two of the studies examined dispersal (Bullock and Primack, 1977; Wichmann et al., 2009). Based on the nine studies 139 species of plants have been identified that have seeds that can attach to clothing and hence have the potential to be dispersed by humans over long distances. Although these studies established that clothing can be an important mechanism for human mediated seed dispersal,
research is required to quantify the amount and composition of seeds that can collect on clothing, and determine if factors such as the location the clothing is worn, the type of material it is made of, and if different clothing items, affect the amount and type of seeds collected. For example, the surface area of the item, the location (such as height) of the item and the adhesive quality of the item are all likely to effect seed attachment to clothing (Bullock and Primack, 1977; Whinam et al., 2005). Different combinations of clothing may affect what seeds attach so that someone wearing shorts, socks, shoelaces and boots may collect different seed than if they were wearing trousers which covered the socks, shoelaces and the top of boots. There are also likely to be differences in the seeds collected when hiking through disturbed areas such as roadsides and car
parks where there are many non-native plant species, to the seeds collected when hiking in intact native vegetation away from roads and tracks. As hikes can commence from roadsides and car parks there is the risk that people may carry non-native seeds from these areas into the natural vegetation in protected areas. The objectives of this study were to experimentally test aspects of seed attachment to clothing as part of assessing the risk of human mediated seed dispersal including for non-native plants. Three field experiments were conducted in a popular national park with high conservation values, Kosciuszko National Park, to determine: (1) What seeds are collected on clothing (species and number, native vs non-native); (2) If there are differences in the seeds collected on socks depending on where someonewalks; (3) If there are differences in the seeds collected on different types of socks; (4) If there are differences in the seeds collected on different items of clothing (boots, socks, laces and trouser leg) and d (5) if
wearing trousers reduces the amount of seeds collected.

(WRI, 1992; IUCN, 2000;
Groves et al., 2005; Nathan, 2008; Wichmann et al., 2009).
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ61 7 5552 8059; fax: þ61 7 5552 8067.
E-mail address: c.pickering@griffith.edu.au (C.M. Pickering).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Environmental Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman
0301-4797/$ – see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2009.08.002

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Nature Essential for the Brain, Scientists Report

Boston Globe - January 2,2009
by Jonah Lehrer

The city has always been an engine of intellectual life, from the 18th-century coffeehouses of London, where citizens gathered to discuss chemistry and radical politics, to the Left Bank bars of modern Paris, where Pablo Picasso held forth on modern art. Without the metropolis, we might not have had the great art of Shakespeare or James Joyce; even Einstein was inspired by commuter trains.

And yet, city life isn't easy. The same London cafes that stimulated Ben Franklin also helped spread cholera; Picasso eventually bought an estate in quiet Provence. While the modern city might be a haven for playwrights, poets, and physicists, it's also a deeply unnatural and overwhelming place.

Now scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it's long been recognized that city life is exhausting -- that's why Picasso left Paris -- this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so.

"The mind is a limited machine,"says Marc Berman, a psychologist at the University of Michigan and lead author of a new study that measured the cognitive deficits caused by a short urban walk. "And we're beginning to understand the different ways that a city can exceed those limitations."

One of the main forces at work is a stark lack of nature, which is surprisingly beneficial for the brain. Studies have demonstrated, for instance, that hospital patients recover more quickly when they can see trees from their windows, and that women living in public housing are better able to focus when their apartment overlooks a grassy courtyard. Even these fleeting glimpses of nature improve brain performance, it seems, because they provide a mental break from the urban roil.

This research arrives just as humans cross an important milestone: For the first time in history, the majority of people reside in cities. For a species that evolved to live in small, primate tribes on the African savannah, such a migration marks a dramatic shift. Instead of inhabiting wide-open spaces, we're crowded into concrete jungles, surrounded by taxis, traffic, and millions of strangers. In recent years, it's become clear that such unnatural surroundings have important implications for our mental and physical health, and can powerfully alter how we think.

This research is also leading some scientists to dabble in urban design, as they look for ways to make the metropolis less damaging to the brain. The good news is that even slight alterations, such as planting more trees in the inner city or creating urban parks with a greater variety of plants, can significantly reduce the negative side effects of city life. The mind needs nature, and even a little bit can be a big help.

Consider everything your brain has to keep track of as you walk down a busy thoroughfare like Newbury Street. There are the crowded sidewalks full of distracted pedestrians who have to be avoided; the hazardous crosswalks that require the brain to monitor the flow of traffic. (The brain is a wary machine, always looking out for potential threats.) There's the confusing urban grid, which forces people to think continually about where they're going and how to get there.

The reason such seemingly trivial mental tasks leave us depleted is that they exploit one of the crucial weak spots of the brain. A city is so overstuffed with stimuli that we need to constantly redirect our attention so that we aren't distracted by irrelevant things, like a flashing neon sign or the cellphone conversation of a nearby passenger on the bus. This sort of controlled perception -- we are telling the mind what to pay attention to -- takes energy and effort. The mind is like a powerful supercomputer, but the act of paying attention consumes much of its processing power.

Natural settings, in contrast, don't require the same amount of cognitive effort. This idea is known as attention restoration theory, or ART, and it was first developed by Stephen Kaplan, a psychologist at the University of Michigan. While it's long been known that human attention is a scarce resource -- focusing in the morning makes it harder to focus in the afternoon -- Kaplan hypothesized that immersion in nature might have a restorative effect.

Imagine a walk around Walden Pond, in Concord. The woods surrounding the pond are filled with pitch pine and hickory trees. Chickadees and red-tailed hawks nest in the branches; squirrels and rabbits skirmish in the berry bushes. Natural settings are full of objects that automatically capture our attention, yet without triggering a negative emotional response -- unlike, say, a backfiring car. The mental machinery that directs attention can relax deeply, replenishing itself.

"It's not an accident that Central Park is in the middle of Manhattan," says Berman. "They needed to put a park there."

In a study published last month, Berman outfitted undergraduates at the University of Michigan with GPS receivers. Some of the students took a stroll in an arboretum, while others walked around the busy streets of downtown Ann Arbor.

The subjects were then run through a battery of psychological tests. People who had walked through the city were in a worse mood and scored significantly lower on a test of attention and working memory, which involved repeating a series of numbers backwards. In fact, just glancing at a photograph of urban scenes led to measurable impairments, at least when compared with pictures of nature.

"We see the picture of the busy street, and we automatically imagine what it's like to be there," says Berman. "And that's when your ability to pay attention starts to suffer."

This also helps explain why, according to several studies, children with attention-deficit disorder have fewer symptoms in natural settings. When surrounded by trees and animals, they are less likely to have behavioral problems and are better able to focus on a particular task.

Studies have found that even a relatively paltry patch of nature can confer benefits. In the late 1990s, Frances Kuo, director of the Landscape and Human Health Laboratory at the University of Illinois, began interviewing female residents in the Robert Taylor Homes, a massive housing project on the South Side of Chicago.

Kuo and her colleagues compared women randomly assigned to various apartments. Some had a view of nothing but concrete sprawl, the blacktop of parking lots and basketball courts. Others looked out on grassy courtyards filled with trees and flowerbeds. Kuo then measured the two groups on a variety of tasks, from basic tests of attention to surveys that looked at how the women were handling major life challenges. She found that living in an apartment with a view of greenery led to significant improvements in every category.

"We've constructed a world that's always drawing down from the same mental account," Kuo says. "And then we're surprised when [after spending time in the city] we can't focus at home."

But the density of city life doesn't just make it harder to focus: It also interferes with our self-control. In that stroll down Newbury, the brain is also assaulted with temptations -- caramel lattes, iPods, discounted cashmere sweaters, and high-heeled shoes. Resisting these temptations requires us to flex the prefrontal cortex, a nub of brain just behind the eyes. Unfortunately, this is the same brain area that's responsible for directed attention, which means that it's already been depleted from walking around the city. As a result, it's less able to exert self-control, which means we're more likely to splurge on the latte and those shoes we don't really need. While the human brain possesses incredible computational powers, it's surprisingly easy to short-circuit: all it takes is a hectic city street.

"I think cities reveal how fragile some of our 'higher' mental functions actually are," Kuo says. "We take these talents for granted, but they really need to be protected."

Related research has demonstrated that increased "cognitive load" -- like the mental demands of being in a city -- makes people more likely to choose chocolate cake instead of fruit salad, or indulge in a unhealthy snack. This is the one-two punch of city life: It subverts our ability to resist temptation even as it surrounds us with it, from fast-food outlets to fancy clothing stores. The end result is too many calories and too much credit card debt.

City life can also lead to loss of emotional control. Kuo and her colleagues found less domestic violence in the apartments with views of greenery. These data build on earlier work that demonstrated how aspects of the urban environment, such as crowding and unpredictable noise, can also lead to increased levels of aggression. A tired brain, run down by the stimuli of city life, is more likely to lose its temper.

Long before scientists warned about depleted prefrontal cortices, philosophers and landscape architects were warning about the effects of the undiluted city, and looking for ways to integrate nature into modern life. Ralph Waldo Emerson advised people to "adopt the pace of nature," while the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted sought to create vibrant urban parks, such as Central Park in New York and the Emerald Necklace in Boston, that allowed the masses to escape the maelstrom of urban life.

Although Olmsted took pains to design parks with a variety of habitats and botanical settings, most urban greenspaces are much less diverse. This is due in part to the "savannah hypothesis," which argues that people prefer wide-open landscapes that resemble the African landscape in which we evolved. Over time, this hypothesis has led to a proliferation of expansive civic lawns, punctuated by a few trees and playing fields.

However, these savannah-like parks are actually the least beneficial for the brain. In a recent paper, Richard Fuller, an ecologist at the University of Queensland, demonstrated that the psychological benefits of green space are closely linked to the diversity of its plant life. When a city park has a larger variety of trees, subjects that spend time in the park score higher on various measures of psychological well-being, at least when compared with less biodiverse parks.

"We worry a lot about the effects of urbanization on other species," Fuller says. "But we're also affected by it. That's why it's so important to invest in the spaces that provide us with some relief."

When a park is properly designed, it can improve the function of the brain within minutes. As the Berman study demonstrates, just looking at a natural scene can lead to higher scores on tests of attention and memory. While people have searched high and low for ways to improve cognitive performance, from doping themselves with Red Bull to redesigning the layout of offices, it appears that few of these treatments are as effective as simply taking a walk in a natural place.

Given the myriad mental problems that are exacerbated by city life, from an inability to pay attention to a lack of self-control, the question remains: Why do cities continue to grow? And why, even in the electronic age, do they endure as wellsprings of intellectual life?

Recent research by scientists at the Santa Fe Institute used a set of complex mathematical algorithms to demonstrate that the very same urban features that trigger lapses in attention and memory -- the crowded streets, the crushing density of people -- also correlate with measures of innovation, as strangers interact with one another in unpredictable ways. It is the "concentration of social interactions" that is largely responsible for urban creativity, according to the scientists. The density of 18th-century London may have triggered outbreaks of disease, but it also led to intellectual breakthroughs, just as the density of Cambridge -- one of the densest cities in America -- contributes to its success as a creative center. One corollary of this research is that less dense urban areas, like Phoenix, may, over time, generate less innovation.

The key, then, is to find ways to mitigate the psychological damage of the metropolis while still preserving its unique benefits. Kuo, for instance, describes herself as "not a nature person," but has learned to seek out more natural settings: The woods have become a kind of medicine. As a result, she's better able to cope with the stresses of city life, while still enjoying its many pleasures and benefits. Because there always comes a time, as Lou Reed once sang, when a person wants to say: "I'm sick of the trees/take me to the city."

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Floating Islands

We are very excited to announce the addition of Floating Islands to our on going endeavourers to beautify our natural world. The Floating Islands are not only beautiful they are constructed of recycled materials and they remove pollutants from the water. Here are some interesting facts about the Floating Islands.
Floating Islands is an innovative water stewardship tool… BioHaven floating islands do five things:
1. They remove pollutants from a waterway, including nitrates, phosphates, ammonia and heavy metals
2. They provide critical riparian edge habitat – in fact, new land mass for use by all kinds of creatures, from microbes to humans
3. They sequester carbon and other greenhouse gases
4. They provide wave mitigation and erosion control
5. They beautify a waterscape Made from layers of recycled plastic “matrix” which are bonded together with adhesive foam, BioHavens are planted with sod, garden plants or wetland plants and launched onto a water body.
There the plants are allowed to grow naturally, and, as they develop, their roots grow through the matrix and into the water below. Over time, a natural eco-system evolves. The model for this is Nature herself - BioHavens “bio-mimic” Nature. We are part of a new branch of science, Biomimicry, or Biomimetics.BioHavens provide surface area for microbes to thrive. Microbes remove pollutants. BioHavens are a concentrated floating wetland – the huge surface area of fibers provides many times more surface area than an equivalent stretch of bare wetland. Surface area is the key factor for microbial activity to take place, and microbes (bacteria) are the key to removing contaminants from the water. Plants and their roots are also important, but more for the extra surface area the roots provide than for any nutrient uptake the plants themselves account for.BioHavens were invented eight years ago, have been successfully trialed for five years and have been on the market since July 2005. They represent a natural, convenient and cost-effective solution for some of the most intractable and expensive problems on the planet:· “Polishing” wastewater and storm water of nutrients and heavy metals to return it safely to the watershed.· Sequestering carbon dioxide and methane from effluent ponds to reduce global warming· Wave mitigation and protection of levees in the event of severe storms· Extraction of salt
Mining nutrient loads from any waterway and reducing algal blooms· Restoring wetlands without the need for new land· Restoring habitat for endangered species such as the trumpeter swan.They can be made in any shape and size and offer some fun uses to balance the more serious side:· Creating walkways, piers, docks, jetties
Supporting recreational uses, such as picnic tables, floating stages, gazebos….· Floating vegetable gardens which never need watering!· Restoring a natural look and balance to any waterway of any size· New land mass for human habitation.Not only are they natural, aesthetic and functional, they are cost-effective, “green” and virtually maintenance free. Why not add a Floating Island to beautify your world?

Contact Howard at 1 800-291-2143

A Natural Healing

I want to share with you a particularly poignant story from one of the guests at The Natural Gait. We are always amazed and grateful at the wonderful things that happen when folks stay at The Natural Gait.
"I cannot begin to describe the peace and healing this beautiful place has provided for me finally. My personal life has been chaotic with the death of one child, my husband of 20 years, another child with CP, a 2nd marriage and divorce, lost job, bankruptcy, moving to a new town and my oldest son leaving for college. I used to have a deep and sustaining faith which was nurtured by nature, however much of that was lost during all the tragedies.
These past 2 days have brought much of that back - this is truly a piece of heaven and you two must be angels - I am so eternally grateful I thank you! Sue"

"This is my dream vacation home and I had a lot of fun. We made smores by the fire pit. It was also fun seeing the sites around here. But most of all I had fun because I was with my family. I hope you have fun too. Michael ( with CP)"

Take Me Away!

I have been searching and searching for something meaningful to add to the blog this week. Our blog is contributed too by a lot of us who share a common love of a special place called 'The Natural Gait.' We couldn't be a more diverse bunch except I think for the love of this place and an ideal of becoming more in touch with our inner selves and our surroundings. Myself I work on the web sites from my home and I look forward to a trip to "TNG" with the excitement of a kid going to the candy store! What a place to set and reflect on life, nature and the pursuit of....

I don't know what makes this spot on earth such a sanctuary, maybe its the people who own it and the land just radiates there love and respect for nature or the combination of the natural log cabins, the wildflowers, the birds and wildlife that seem to "know" that they are safe here.
This reflection reminded my of the things that "set me free" or "lifts my spirit." Or the dozen other descriptive terms that puts us in a nice peaceful state of mind and body.

Every since I was a kid I have loved feeling the wind in my face and blowing my hair. I have spent some time through the years trying to figure out why the wind has such a calming effect on my body and spirit. I still don't have an answer except for the glimmer of a thought that I am joining in with a natural phenomenon called "wind". Becoming part of the natural world around me.

As a young woman I liked nothing better than to hop on a motorcycle behind my husband and ride fast (that was pre helmet laws) Just to feel the wind blow on my face and mess up my hair. We had horses at the time and I had a mare that loved to run and that was fine by me as we spent precious time together watching the scenery fly by with my eyes stinging from the race that we both felt we were winning against the world. The oneness I would feel with my horse during those times is unlike anything I have ever felt since.

Last year we came into a little extra money and my husband bought me my "dream car". Yes you guessed it a convertible! We had given up the motorcycle life a few years ago due to me becoming scared of riding on them and my husband claimed he didn't enjoy it without me on behind.
Back to the car! I can not put into words how this car has effected my life. When ever I feel low I just hop in put the top down (weather permitting) and go! Fifteen minutes later all my cares just fly away in the wind. What a rush!
What sets you free? Kay