Wonderland Community Project

Great news from MA of wetlands restoration funding: "The grants, provided by the New England state’s department of fish and game division of ecological restoration (DER), will “increase resilience to climate change for people and nature, restore crucial wildlife habitat, and improve water quality” in 12 communities, said the Massachusetts governor, Maura Healey, in a statement." 🤿 At Wonderland Community Project, work to restore a degraded #fen and discussions about how to address some of the work done to create ponds (impoundments) are both ongoing. Early maps show a small waterway ariund the center of the property that was later channeled and then impounded. There is plenty of other work to consider (our Olympic pool with trees growing out of it, for example) and we hope to address it all in time. For now, tho, we take inspiration from this well-funded and necessary work. For more: https://lnkd.in/gkMqwZje

Big news from Oregon: Oregon tribe celebrates as court lifts decades-long hunting and fishing restrictions "For the last 47 years, the Confederated Tribes of #Siletz Indians have held an annual powwow to celebrate regaining federal recognition. This month’s event, however, was especially significant: it came just two weeks after a federal court lifted restrictions on the tribe’s rights to hunt, fish and gather – restrictions tribal leaders had opposed for decades." #sovereignty #landback

🪴 We engaged on the process of restoring Wonderland Community Project without having any real understanding of the complexities and subtleties involved. We closed on the property in June 2021, and in September 2021 had the great good fortune to tour McHenry County Conservation District's Glacial Park. We saw how a combination of Oak / Hickory Woodland, Oak Barrens, and Prairie could come together in a kettles / kames geology and look beautiful, supporting a wide variety of productive life. 🪓 The issue, however, is that we still didn't know what it would feel like to engage with the invasives and timescales of our own property. As any who follow our Patreon (https://lnkd.in/gkMqwZje) know, it took us about three years to build the primary infrastructure of the project and establish the #community at its heart. All that time, we cleared and moved biomass, culminating in preferred approaches to brush clearing - dead hedges https://lnkd.in/gU6z3RVr and perhaps a biochar kiln for now, instead of burn piles. 🐣 We hadn't found time to come back - but this week, we are staying as a family in Richmond IL and were finally able to make it out. Seeing the restored land and being able to compare it to what we are doing gives a sense of clarity to what we are aiming for. It was also worth noting that despite the time and effort expended at the park, some honeysuckle and buckthorn still remains. It's a great reminder that we are not aiming to build a pristine landscape, but instead a productive #convivial environment for all the cohabitants!

“To me, the National Indian Carbon Coalition… we really are a way to catalyze these systems, these carbon markets, these ecosystem service markets, to support tribes to reach their environmental and natural resource management goals,” says Jake Stanton, Reforestation Manager at NICC. Learn more about how reforestation can benefit local ecosystems today.

It's a win for all four counties with ballot measures supporting clean air, water, and wildlife! Congratulations to DuPage, Kane, Lake, and McHenry Counties for this generationally significant investment, which will bring $669 million to Forest Preserves and Conservation Districts. We look forward to supporting future work and enjoying the outdoors. Full release: https://lnkd.in/gGtnP4j3

📰 Here are two updates from Wonderland Community Project on our website: 💀 November update, covering El Día de los Muertos, the Grief Retreat, and updates from November's work day (https://lnkd.in/g-FjBeXE) 🦫 Brief History of Wonderland - or a story of reclaiming values in land stewarding (https://lnkd.in/gf3Brf25) Vanessa Oniboni asks: As the current stewards of the land, we look at the actions of the previous stewards and ask: What values did the settlers bring with themselves? How did these values guide their land stewarding practices? And how did it differ from the Indigenous nations who had been stewarding this Land for millenia? Check out the full article in our Patreon (https://lnkd.in/gvzyc-Mg). #community #eldiadelosmuertos #history #support

🍄Promise & Fulfilment (with thanks to Chris Stafferton) This morning it's 11C and breezy, with a general sense of fall in the air. I spent a few minutes collecting these milkweed seeds in the yard to take to Wonderland, and was thinking about a conversation I had with a local seed distributor. 🦫 I had cleared an area of flat land between two contour lines (almost certainly something that was done at #Berryland to accommodate campers) and had reached out to the distributor to ask about seed mixes that could help establish more of the oak savanna that would likely have been here historically. Their view was that we should treat the new clearing with herbicides and then replant in winter / spring. 👎 While some of what Suzanne Simard has suggested about cooperation and competition continues to spark debate, her commentary on the impact of herbicides seems fairly uncontested. As a means to save time, and thus as a tool of capitalism, there seems no doubt that the infamous 'spot treatment' with RoundUp / glysophates is unparalleled. However, the rich biological life of the soil - many billions of interdependent processes - suffers measurably as a result. 🥴 We don't have a romantic view of clearing without herbicides. It's hard and thankless work, and it is a constant struggle. No doubt there is nuance as age and time work their transformations. But putting glysophate down so we can plant a species that we believe today has more value than what's there? That doesn't seem right

🌊 Here's my latest post on #ClimateLandLeaders, featuring some thoughts on the fen restoration work at Wonderland Community Project 🦫 The primary image here features Tom Simpson, who we met through his work on beavers and their impact on the landscape. That connection brought us closer, in turn, to the McHenry County Conservation District whose immense Glacial Park sits at the northern end of Wonder Lake and is a real inspiration for us in terms of how these landscapes can look when the invasive plants are in abeyance.

😱 What is the point of any of this? Or, perhaps even more succinctly - why join Wonderland Community Project? We're not professional content creators, influencers, or land restoration experts - why us? why now? 🦦 When we bought the land, we had only big dreams and the remnants of #Berryland - an olympic sized swimming pool (with trees growing out of it), piles of rubble (including the entire front hood of a 1950s car), and a dancefloor (with a collapsed roof). It took us some time to establish the critical infrastructure - a toilet, yes, but also a well-appointed kids' area, rope swings, storage, well-tended trails and access to ponds for kayaking. Creating a Patreon https://lnkd.in/gvzyc-Mg would have been asking our community to pay for gas and woodchips - to fund us in our crazy dream. 🌳 No matter what happens on #ElectionDay, the work of #climateadaptation and #climatemitigation is only beginning. We don't see this as work that should be carried out in a vacuum - we see it as both / and: creating resources for our extended community that also address #climatechange. You don't have to take our word for it - the science on how soil organic carbon increases water-holding capacity and the small water cycle underpins global initiatives like #4p1000; #agroforestry can produce more calories per acre than conventional ag; and regenerative changes affect local heat and weather in real time, helping to offset broader climate issues. 🚶♀️➡️ Along the way, we are learning many lessons about circularity and conviviality- and we are learning to develop a bias to action that nonetheless encompasses variant capacities. Delivering real change requires questioning our own beliefs of individuality and urgency, and working together. There are many questions that we are only just figuring out, and tools we will build and share that don't exist today. Similarly, where there are choices, we are developing an opinion. We're not saying it's the only opinion, or even the best opinion - but we'd like you to join us as we go.

🪚 One of the things that's been an unlooked for benefit of founding Wonderland Community Project (https://lnkd.in/g9cugym6) has been the number of experiences we have all had that have changed how we interact with the world - how we think about ourselves. Sometimes, this can be at the broader level - such as seeing so many volunteers and community members joining us to plant trees, build infrastructure, or share stories. 🕳️ Sometimes, it's a lot narrower - such as digging a hole. 👷 When we started the project in 2021, I'd never dug a hole for a fence post. I didn't know how deep it needed to be, nor that it would take 4 of us 4 months during the summer heat of 2023 to dig 3 holes. Three! In my backyard in Chicago, we had talked 8 years ago about digging in a fence post in order to have a clothesline - but the logistics seemed impossible (how deep? what about frost? how make it stable?) ⛏️ Last weekend, in preparation for a Halloween party, I dug a hole straight down 42 inches into Chicago sand, cut a post to size and dropped it in. In 40 minutes, the (w)hole thing was over. I had definitely invested more time worrying about this than it took me to do it. 🤗 It's a small story, and not one without elements of privilege - a yard, the tools, the time, and all for leisure. But there are also aspects here of community - how doing something with others helps you to understand that it can be done, and erodes the fear we have of showing up as ourselves in the world: what do I know about setting fence posts? Or using a scythe, or doing a prescribed burn, or building a (particularly well-appointed) compost toilet? My brother-in-law calls it 'quitando miedos' (shedding fears) - overcoming these concerns and engaging with the world. 👻 Come join us for events including a #griefretreat and #workday in November - and start shedding off your own fears!