This is the second article in a LO Review series on Neighbors for Nature, provided by the Oswego Lake Watershed Council. Mike Buck is an Oswego Lake Watershed Council steward.
Beauty connects. I have a friend who has to move. He says he will miss our trees most. We all hold these kinds of attachments, and it’s no surprise that so many relate to nature given how it intimately shapes our sense of home and belonging. As I remain here after 45 years, what I miss most are the plants and animals that are disappearing or are already gone. I no longer see the same number of hairy and downy woodpeckers that inhabit our neighborhood’s oak uplands. I no longer see so many native groundcovers in this same area. These losses have changed how I see my responsibilities as a neighbor. I feel obligated to think ecologically and ethically for the sake of protecting what is seriously threatened here. Ecology conceptually sees us all as part of one interconnected reality; ethics applies social thinking of reflection and reasoning given the urgency and worthiness of our care.
A deer, photographed May 28, 2026
Both forms of thinking aim at comprehensive, in-depth perception and analysis and call forth the best of who we are as persons. When we deal with what really matters, what is important to us, our critical thinking tends to go deep since we know our actions will affect the world around us. Many people are expanding their embrace of ethical inclusion to natural life systems that have always been present but not recognized. Even how we refer to “nature” in records and documents, like often referencing it as “open space,” does not accord it with anything but possible utility.
Within our urban forest, many seek a home here. Others are drawn to visit. Yet our staying necessarily displaced significant wildlife and plant life, and what remains struggles for survival. Native vegetation faces constant pressure from ecologically disruptive species competing for space and resources. What urban forest remains we have partially saved in minimized pockets of landscapes and parks. When we take time to not just look at nature but actually absorb it – sensing its manifest forms of beauty — it becomes attached inside us as a precious resource. A gift.
Both forms of thinking aim at comprehensive, in-depth perception and analysis and call forth the best of who we are as persons. When we deal with what really matters, what is important to us, our critical thinking tends to go deep since we know our actions will affect the world around us. Many people are expanding their embrace of ethical inclusion to natural life systems that have always been present but not recognized. Even how we refer to “nature” in records and documents, like often referencing it as “open space,” does not accord it with anything but possible utility.
There is a real value in this “remainder.” Our yards matter because together they comprise so much of our total urban forest. Though we see ourselves as the main “actors,” the land shapes our choices of how we care, protect, respect and help nourish as we dwell in its seasonal beauty and value its benefits. The land can guide us if we are willing to pay attention to both what is struggling and what is thriving. What counts or matters is our collective care, the distillation of our ethical, ecological thinking that embellishes the “common good.” This care necessarily includes creative action.
It’s not just passing-by with no connection; rather, it is an embodiment of relationship, of care, of harmony.
Sammi and Andrew Buck helping build a check-dam on Lily Bay Tributary.
I imagine most of us remember when we interacted with nature in some meaningful way – being truly immersed in it — when this outside place moved inside us and became part of our being. Didn’t that experience feel transcendent — like insight or indulgence? That encountering depth becomes part of our identity and our story. We are different because of these deeper journeys that invite wonder, imagination, leisure and consciousness. We are vital partners with nature.
The Indigenous Cree teacher Willy Ermine talks about taking time to imagine how best to inhabit the ethical space culturally fashioned between “self” and the “other.” How do we embrace this? Can we? Or are we too estranged to even know our mutual relationship with the land? Do we respect it enough to know how to take care of it as it strives to survive? What is our stance of existence together with the land — our mutual exist-stance? Can we accompany nature rather than just tolerate or accommodate it?
Research in social psychology denotes the correlation between human health and environmental health. This interdependence should wake us up to better know how nature “is.” Any moral “ought” is derived from a recognition and understanding of our land’s “is” — which is how and what it needs. It starts with a big “yes” to the hard work of learning and caring so future generations do not miss this beauty even though they are still here. Many in the community are already seeing what is at stake and are doing this reciprocal work of stewardship in many different ways. Please join them.