Nature is close at hand in King Township. It covers the hills and valleys and is right out the back door. Residents and visitors appreciate the “green” side of King, and this year there is even more reason to celebrate. The United Nations proclaimed 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity, and people all over the world are celebrating by exploring and protecting the natural world.

But what is biological diversity? Here’s an official version: “Biodiversity refers to the variety of life, as expressed through genes, species and ecosystems, that is
shaped by ecological and evolutionary processes.” Biodiversity is the natural world in all its variations. It is the nature that surrounds us and sustains us.

Let’s look at the beaver as an example. Immortalized on the King Township logo, the beaver is one of 81 Ontario mammal species. It is a biodiversity machine. The dams beavers create to support their families also create ponds and wetlands that are homes to thousands of other species. The ponds also function as natural settling ponds, capturing and recycling sediment and nutrients in upstream ecosystems. Beavers are also habitat themselves, being home to natural parasites. So in the beaver we have species diversity, habitat diversity and natural processes all rolled up into one interesting critter.

Now let’s look at the bigger picture. When called on to describe biodiversity, I often turn to Henry David Thoreau’s reflection of our dependence on nature and its diversity: “In wildness is the preservation of the world.” Thoreau penned this line in his 1862 essay Walking. Thoreau lectured regularly on walking in the 1850s, and later sent a manuscript of his talk to the Atlantic Monthly, which published it a month after he died. Admirers consider Walking to be one of Thoreau’s best brief statements of his philosophy.

Thoreau found strength in walking and salvation in the wild. “A town is saved,” he said, ‘not more by the righteous men in it than by the woods and swamps that surround it.” The untamed “wildness” that stretched westward from 19th century New England held primitive forests and swamps that were sacred to him. But his
reverence was not a romantic sentiment. Thoreau’s wildness was the tangible “marrow of nature” that you can eat, drink, climb, breathe, touch, feel and explore. Wildness was also a state of mind – a place free from the shackles of society and conformity. In wildness, he believed, we can find not only serenity, but sanity.

Wild places like the Happy Valley Forest, Pottageville Swamp and Cold Creek Conservation Area remind me that it is not just big wilderness areas that will preserve the natural world. It is the wildness that we cherish all around us: it is in the lot-sized, even pocketsized, nature reserves. It is in the ravine, the hedgerow,
the old field. It is the wetlands we safeguard and the dead trees and other natural messiness we treasure in forests.

So, this year, celebrate International Year of Biodiversity by getting out into nature and, more importantly, bringing a nature neophyte along with you. Take time to regard the great array of species on the landscape. Look how they fit together in various habitats. Watch as they interact and live out their lives together. Reflect on how these natural wonders directly benefit people by improving the air and water, by eating insect pests and by pollinating our plants.

And finally, we can remind ourselves of how nature can be resilient, when given the chance. Back in the late 1800’s, when Thoreau was making his pitch for wildness, beavers were actually an endangered species (although that term had not been coined yet). With public awareness and regulations, beavers have come back to reclaim their place in the natural order of things in King Township and beyond.

Mark Stabb is Central Ontario Program Manager of the Nature Conservancy of Canada and is also a member of the Ontario Biodiversity Council. The Council recently announced the release of Ontario’s State of Biodiversity Report. It can be found at www.ontariobiodiversitycouncil.ca