What does "Wyatt E Coyote Ecological Services" do?

Let's break it down into a few smaller questions...

What does it mean to restore an urban ecosystem?

• Everywhere is an ecosystem... no matter how many natural features are present. That means everything is subject to the study of ecology. And that means that everywhere can be made into a functional part of a community's infrastructure, if that ecosystem is managed. Care for your land and it will care for you.

• However, urban ecosystems are usually ruderal: meaning that the natural context of the ecosystem - the original soil, rock, and water conditions - has been removed or wasted.

• Until recently, science has understood few of the full effects of water and soil alterations. Water and soil are inextricably interlinked. Changing one affects another. However in most suburbs around Chicagoland, natural water processing has been entirely disrupted and healthy topsoil has been entirely removed.

• Managing and restoring healthy soil and water regimes in urban and suburban ecosystems is a challenging, but worthwhile, task. However, half of the challenge is merely shedding a lot of what you thought you knew about gardening!

• It starts with the removal of invasive species from the ecosystem. Then it may require the remediation of the soil and water itself. This can be done with customized native plant communities alone, but is expedited by a few simple tasks that can turn compacted, clay subsoil into a few inches of topsoil ready for planting.

• All functions of an ecosystem for all parts of the seasonal cycle must be considered when planning and planting a community of native plants. See the “Resources” section to find interesting guides that go into more depth about these considerations.

Why restore our ecosystems?

• Natural soil and water structures are the foundation of ecosystems, and ecosystems are the foundations of society!

• Our natural communities can... process and clean both air and water more cheaply and efficiently than artificial infrastructure.

• Among other things, native plant communities can:

  • Prevent and mitigate flooding by detaining water in their roots, retaining water until it can flow without flooding, or conveying water away from your yard and into the gutter.

  • Restore soil quality and fertility and prevent run-off of necessary nutrients, and thus improve the soil's ability to...

  • ...clean-up toxic pollutants and pathogens before they affect you, your garden, or your family! With the help of plants that can absorb, disperse, break-down, and clean up such toxins.

  • Offset emissions and sequester carbon and other greenhouse gases back into the soil where they can be of benefit once again (more CO2 than plants are used to is BAD for plants).

  • Regulate local climates for both temperature and moisture while severely reducing energy costs and improving property values.

  • Provide diverse and resilient gene-pools for organisms to survive, thrive, and evolve according to changing conditions, so that they can continue to function as the climate changes.

  • Reduce pests (like mosquitos, house-bound rodents, and ticks). Yes... reduce pests.

  • Improve the efficacy of education and therapy, with faster recovery times, higher mental retention, and a host of other side-effects of being around nature.

  • Provide sustainable food and medicine that, with the right gardening ethic, can be cheaper and healthier than grocery shopping.

• And that’s not even the half of it! All of these functions and more are why we call natural communities Green Infrastructure. Our society cannot afford to view these ecosystems as anything other than valuable infrastructure of its own rite. They already have the solutions to many of the problems our communities face as a result of neglecting or destroying this infrastructure. Thus, we can learn from existing natural communities to recreate, customize, and integrate their form and functionality with our own artificial infrastructure, or Grey Infrastructure.

• Besides all of these public benefits, native gardens can provide a gardener with many benefits as well! If your native plant community is well selected, you can...

  • Suppress weeds with ease, or even make them work for you!

  • Never use fertilizer or other additives again (unless you like composting).

  • Water minimally, if at all.

  • Forget about mosquitos.

  • Cure your flooding and runoff issues.

  • Feed your favorite birds or attract your favorite butterflies,

  • and so on and so forth.

  • If you have an aspiration for your garden, just communicate that to myself or other experts and there is certainly a native plant community that can fulfill your needs!

What makes it invasive?

An invasive species is a species that disrupts ecosystem functions and hurts biodiversity (which enables those functions). Most invasive species are exotic: coming from places with similar climates but different disturbances, to places long inhabited by species with which the invasive one did not co-evolve with the native species.

In Other Words: Invasive species are species that are brought to a new ecosystem because of humans, and then take-over and degrade that ecosystem.

Some native species can behave invasive-like when new disturbances are introduced, or when native disturbances that once controlled the species’ population are removed.

Many exotics are not invasive, some natives behave invasive-like, and many of both have the potential to become invasive as our ecosystems and climate continue to change. This is also dependent on context. An acre dominated by one native plant might not be a big deal if surrounded by one-hundred acres of natural ecosystem. However, if your New-England Aster is overtaking all of the other flowers in your garden, then it is certainly “invasive” in the context of your garden.

If you have a plant on your property that is forming a monoculture - preventing other plants from growing around it, or overtaking other plants around it - you likely have an invasive species.

What about herbicide?

Herbicide is complimentary and optional in all of my treatments, but in many cases it may be highly recommended or the only effective, long-term method. All of the herbicides I use are systemic, meaning that they are meant to only travel within the plant’s vascular system and circulate therein. Below are some popular herbicides you might have heard of:

• I primarily use an herbicide called Triclopyr which is very effective against all kinds of plants, but has practically no known toxicity to all terrestrial organisms from birds to bugs to humans. It can be harmful to fish, however Triclopyr breaks down naturally into harmless compounds in a matter of hours, when exposed to water and microbe-heavy conditions. It also is usually an oil, which means that it will not easily dissolve or disperse into water, and there is an aqua-safe version for use in close proximity to water. Soil microbes can break it down in less than two days, but the wetter the soil, the quicker this can occur. In dry and deprived soils, it may take months to break down. Same goes for many herbicides. I generally prefer Triclopyr as it is less potent than Glyphosate - while that means it takes more treatments, it also is less likely to kill non-target plants. Another reason to consider using Glyphosate instead is that Triclopyr can be absorbed through roots in the soil.

• Some herbicides, like Glyphosate, may be necessary to get rid of certain species. Glyphosate is the primary ingredient in Round Up and is the most common herbicide in the world - not because of it’s efficacy, but because of its marketing. Glyphosate is a key player in the degradation of ecosystems and agricultural communities across the world. However this is due to it's abuse rather than something exceptional about the compound itself. Glyphosate can break down in days under ideal conditions, but can take months or years to break down in the environment. It also cannot be absorbed by a plant's roots if it enters the soil, unlike Triclopyr. However it is known as dangerously toxic to most organisms and their gut biomes, and may contribute to lymphoma, leukemia, reproductive defects, and more in humans.

• I may also use an herbicide mixture called Ornamec which only affects grasses, specifically within the plant family Poaceae, and has very-little-to-no toxicity to terrestrial organisms, breaking down in hours or days depending on conditions. Due to its target-specific nature, it can be safely sprayed in areas where other plants are present, as it only harms “true” grasses. There is also Intensity or Clethodim that I might use for the same purpose. Clethodim breaks down almost immediately in the soil biome, although has moderate toxicity to birds and mammals and must be used with care.

• Despite their dangers, most (but not all) exotic invasive species have special adaptations such that, in almost all contexts, the use of herbicide is the only reliable method of treatment. If we want to restore our ecosystems, we must use it. Even the more dangerous herbicides are eventually cleaned up by native ecosystems. If you could cure a cancer with an ounce of poison, would you refrain? On that note...

• Most herbicides outside of ecological restoration are used needlessly where there are less harmful methods of control that can be employed. The majority of herbicide poisoning in Cook County would come from consumers and landscapers - the home & garden sector. By a landslide, the largest overall source of herbicide poisoning (in both the environment and humans) is the agrarian sector, while the transportation/government sector competes with landowners/homeowners for second-place. However, as for the most common and widespread uses of herbicides, similar effects can be accomplished (with greater long-term efficiency and numerous positive side-effects) using native plant communities and mechanical treatments.

• Forest Preserve stewards like myself are trained and certified under the Illinois Department of Agriculture as “Herbicide Applicators”. We are trained using very careful and acute methods that ensure little-to-no impact of our herbicide use beyond the precise target species. Furthermore, we are trained to exceed the expectations of the IDOA. Herbicides used for ecological restoration account for little-to-virtually-none of the damage that herbicides cause generally. On the other hand, anyone can go and purchase Glyphosate at the store. Homeowners, businesses, landowners, and governments regularly do. The agricultural industry uses more of it by far than any other sector, spraying Glyphosate on nearly every vegetable and grain that we eat, and using them to control native and invasive species around and throughout farmlands, even sometimes at the farmer’s detriment.

What about lawns?

I kill them!

• Lawns are one of the greatest contributors to ecological degradation and climate change that lies entirely within the power of municipal governments and consumers to eliminate.

• As an invention of slave-owning aristocrats that was popularized for watching slaves work and mimicking the status of such aristocrats, lawns were advertised to the public in their current form by the chemical companies who accidentally invented lawn treatments. Lawns provide virtually zero ecological benefit whatsoever. Remember: ecological benefits entail benefits to you, the consumer, as well as the rest of the ecosystem.

• Lawns compact and sterilize the soil so that it lacks nutrition and oxygen nor and cannot process water, flooding, air, and toxins. They contribute significantly to flooding, heat-islands (wherein a certain area becomes unnaturally hot and dry due to a lack of vegetation), loss of biodiversity, and even to the toxicity of our waterways and soils as a whole, due to lawn treatments and lawns’ inability to process or detain pollutants.

If Glyphosate sounded bad to you, just wait until you understand what lawn-treatment companies knowingly do to our communities:

“Studies show that hazardous lawn chemicals are drifting into our homes where they contaminate indoor air and surfaces, exposing children to levels ten times higher than pre-application levels. Of 40 most commonly used lawn pesticides, 26 are linked with cancer or carcinogenicity, 12 are linked with birth defects, 21 with reproductive effects, 32 with liver or kidney damage, 24 with neurotoxicity, and 24 with disruption of the endocrine (hormonal) system.Of those same 40 lawn pesticides, 21 are detected in groundwater, 24 have the ability to leach into drinking water sources, 39 are toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms vital to our ecosystem, 33 are toxic to bees, 18 are toxic to mammals, and 28 are toxic to birds.” [Beyond Pesticides]