[00:00:01] Hello, everyone, and welcome back to our weekly webinar series that occurs here on our Facebook page every Friday at noon. My name is Briona. I'm an intern for Sustainable Transportation Vermont. And I'm here to introduce our speaker for today. Today, we have with us Brian Collier. He is an artist, educator and naturalist, is also an associate professor of art and design at St. Michael's College. And he is also the founder and president of the Society of for a Re-natural Environment and is in the process of becoming a Vermont master naturalists. So I'm very excited to introduce Brian today. And today he will be talking about his project that he's been working on called Unlawning America. Brian, thank you so much for being here.

[00:00:46] Great. Thank you so much. Thanks to you, Brianna. And thanks to Richard for inviting me. So I think I'm going to go ahead and take over and I'll just jump right in. And then I really look forward to our conversation and questions after I sort of talk about the overview. OK. Sounds like go ahead and jump right in.

[00:01:13] We get.

[00:01:15] All right. So I'm here to day to talk about an interdisciplinary art and ecology project. I've been working on for about a couple of years. It's called Unlocking America. And the central goal of the project is to. Help influence a cultural shift away from the dominance of mowed lawn.

[00:01:34] And to encourage people to plow unused mowed lawn to transform into pollinator friendly meadows. Almost all the work I've made for the past 20 years has been pretty similar to what I'm doing now. And this is research based interdisciplinary art projects that examines specific examples of our impacts. On the other species we share the planet with. And I'm particularly interested in increasing awareness of our inseparable connection to all aspects of the natural world. My ultimate goal as an artist is to present work that makes it difficult for people to ignore the ecological landscape encountered in their daily lives. Ideally, this shift in perspective will influence people to make less harmful choices when interacting with these plants and animals. We shared planet with. So talking about an environmentally focused project, when there's such unrest and movement for racial justice and social change should in no way diminish the vital importance of that work. In fact, my hope is that it should cause us all to pay more attention to the links between racism and environmental problems. We know from the study of ecosystems that all things are are intersected. Environmental justice intersects with social justice, racial justice, economic justice and human health. Of course, racists and authoritarians want followers, not thinkers. And people who stop to think instead of blindly follow often come to the realization that just because something is common practice or because they've been told to do it by their chosen leaders doesn't make a good practice or best practice. Ron Finley, who's pictured here in the center top, is a fantastic example of this kind of thinking and action that challenges convention he saw as Ron. He started a movement for growing fresh food in south central L.A. by replacing the small mode's strip of land in front of his house with garden. There's a large there are a large number of organizations and people like Ron Finley working to shift the ways we think about green space use and management. Despite these efforts, cultural barriers based mainly on esthetics and fear prevent many of us from adopting these practices. You need only look around you no matter where you live, to see that these existing programs have yet to produce a significant shift away from this dominance of Moad landscape. So this continued dominance is primarily unused, mowed lawn is exactly what motivated me to undertake and to continue this project. We face an overwhelmed. We really at all times. Right now, we're facing an overwhelming barrage of environmental concerns that a lot of us feel powerless to resolve. So my project is intended to provide people with an easy way to take agency where they live and work to combat a number of these concerns by not doing something, by not knowing the lawns that aren't used for recreational activities. We can simultaneously reduce carbon emissions, reduce the amount of nitrates and chemicals going into our earth and water, use less water and create habitat for pollinators and other important insects. Lorne currently is the largest irrigated crop in the continental US, taking up more than 40 million acres of land. Most people don't think of lawn as a cultivated crop, but that's exactly what it is. Despite the fact that it doesn't provide for our food or energy needs. Aside from the relatively small amount of lawn that's actively used for sport and play space, lawns only function is cultural conformity based on what I argue are misguided esthetic standards. So imagine the immediate ecological benefits of half of those 40 million acres becoming pollinator friendly meadows. Currently, most of this is mowed about once every week or two with gas powered mowers, though, imagine the reduction in carbon emissions if we cut mower use by half. This project is intended to challenge people to ask, why do we habitually mow our lawns? How much lawn do we really need? And also to consider the negative impacts of keeping a lawn. Lorne, in addition to being described as an ecological desert, has been linked to a number of serious environmental problems through the use of herbicides, pesticides, fertilization, water use and pollution from mowing. In more arid regions of the country, watering the lawn can make up to 75 percent total household water consumption. A study from Purdue University shows that urban areas use between 30 and 60 percent of all their fresh water just to water their lawns. Then there's the issue of water contamination. So sixty seven million pounds of synthetic pesticides and about 47 million pounds of herbicides are used each year on lawns in the US. Much of this is carried off as runoff. These excess nutrients also from the grass clippings and fertilizers contribute to algae blooms which deplete oxygen in the water, making it unsafe for recreational use. And these algae blooms can also kill fish and many other complex lifeforms. The transmission of these chemicals is made worse when frequently mowed grass, which does little to slow water. Runoff is directly next to water bodies. Hardscape, sir, like it pictured here in this sewer drain. Mowing with the gas powered mower is one of the most harmful activities related to keeping lawn until nineteen ninety five, lawn mower emissions were unregulated. Older, more powerful, less efficient. Two cycle engines released. Twenty five to thirty percent of their oil and gas unburned into their. The EPA estimates that approximately eight hundred million gallons of gas were used teacher for mowing. They also estimate around 17 million gallons of this spilled on the ground each year. Getting into our air and water mowing also produces very large amounts of air pollution, much greater than cars and trucks. According to the same EPA study, one hour of mowing with a new gas powered mower produces more air pollution than 11 new cars driven for the same amount of time.

[00:08:00] There is a growing scientific body of evidence showing pollinators, and many other insects are in decline globally.

[00:08:08] This is incredibly alarming, especially due to the vital role these animals have in maintaining the health of our ecosystems. Iconic species like the monarch butterfly are in sharp decline due to a combination of climate change and habitat loss. And as a biologist once told me, in relation to the monarchs decline, more milkweed means more monarchs. It's easy to extrapolate from that statement that more pollinator friendly plants and habitat will mean more pollinators as well. So why do we have laws? A lot of Americans have been conditioned to want large expanses of both lawn and many believe turf grass is the best option for our residential and commercial landscapes. This cultural tradition can be traced back to English and French manners, where the lawn was really a display of wealth. Homeloans in the U.S. started appearing in the decades after the civil war due to the growing availability of lawnmowers. They spread thanks to the proselytizing of landscape architects. Jackson Downing and his protege, Frank Scott, you may recognize the name Scott from the Scott Lawn Company, which is named after him. There was a great expansion of lawns in the post-World War Two period when lawn filled housing developments exploded across the country because few think about lawns in a historical context. We unquestioningly accept Lawn as an essential component of American middle class identity. So one Morning America was designed to make ecologically harmful landscaping practices more visible and less ordinary to us. The project celebrates unmowed greenspace and models alternatives to mowed lawn. Perhaps more importantly, it's designed to frame non lawn green spaces as ecologically and esthetically valuable, challenging our deeply seeded perceptions and reminding all of us that these were established through cultural traditions and questionable beliefs. The project highlights the enormous amounts of labor and costs both financial and environmental, that one maintenance requires. There are huge savings of time and money available by simply stopping or reducing mowing, especially for large institutions or business properties. Based on all this information, I believe that the case for not knowing is very strong and the solution I'm proposing in practice is incredibly simple. There are a lot of different ways you can participate in this activity. And I've actually been working on an online kit pictured here to help people get started. The kit includes an Morning America sign marking flags to outline the area that you want to stop mowing. And a booklet with information and strategies that can be used to create your own online meadow.

[00:10:54] These strategies are things like creating shaped remote areas bordering actively used areas with unmowed edges. Mowing passed through unmowed meadows.

[00:11:12] We're moving around naturally occurring plants into more organized arrangements to make them look a little bit more like a controlled garden. These are all intended to reduce the possibility of having your site look messy to the uninformed neighbor and to leave your phone or. And which also leaves you vulnerable to local citations or fines in areas that you want to keep as meadows. You may need to mow once every two to three years. We estimate to keep woody species from becoming established and having the site turn into a woodland. This is true if you're trying to do this activity in much of the northeast, most of these places naturally want to turn into forest. So the advice I've gotten from biologists on when is the best time to mow? To reduce harm to wildlife is just before snow or midwinter in places with no snow cover or late winter, very early spring. And that eliminates the disruption of nesting birds and insects and stuff like that. Sometimes it's useful to increase pollinate or plant diversity at the site through planting. So the picture that you just saw, Transform, is called a biodiversity enhancement desk. Now, this is something I designed just for this purpose. You can simply throw this into a moat area and then let the area grow up around it. There's a cardboard ring around the outside which is designed to kill or prevent growth of other plants. While the center desk, a mix of clay, compost and native flowering plants seeds is allowed to grow in what you see pictured here. This is about two or three year, two years of development. So each kit, each of the kit boxes has one of these embedded right into the lid. So you can tear the lid off and use that for this purpose. In addition to these strategies, some kind of signage to let people know what you're doing can help tremendously with public acceptance of unmowed sites. This is the official sign I designed for online America, and it's available to people either with the kit or by contacting me directly. Of course, it's really important for me to make this point. There's no need for you to follow any of my specific directions or even identify yourself as participating with this project. My goal is that I just want people to mow less. You can simply stop mowing or mow far less than you do now and watch what happens in the years I've been working with and observing the development of utmost meadows. I've been amazed at the resilience of the non-human natural world and the speed with which things recolonized land. Once we leave it alone. So by simply reducing or eliminating, mowing and by not using herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers, we can make significant and measurable improvements to our local ecosystems. The need for this change is immediate, especially for pollinators in decline. Together, through this thoughtful in action, we can help our ecosystem become healthier and more resilient. So that's pretty much what I have. I would love to continue this conversation and take any questions any of you might have.

[00:14:33] Thank you so much. So we definitely have some questions. So the first one is from Jacob White saying he's an intern at Sustainable Transportation Vermont as well. And Jacob asks, Has there been any successful cases you've seen that have healed, heeded your call to action and experienced positive ecological growth through it?

[00:14:55] Lots. Actually, we have a lot of a lot of sites happening. Our first site was actually out at Shelburn Farm here in Vermont. And when the project was launched a couple of years ago, we had six sites on the property. They have since shifted some of their some of the sites. And now we have one large site that's been developing over the years. There are also a number of sites. I've had interactions with homeowners who have contacted me and said they've been doing this in their yards. It's basically, you know, we asked for people to reassess if they use the lawn that they mow. That's it. If you don't use it, then let pollinators use it. That's that's essentially the core of it. So I bought my house out here in Hinds, burned Vermont in 2014, and we reduced the mowed lawn area by down to about a third of what was previously mode. And I can tell you, just in observing my yard that I use as a test site also that the pollinator activity and the activity of animals has just been tremendous. And what's grown? We also have sites on the on my college campus, St. Michael's College. We have now three NOMO areas that are transformed into Meadows and some biology professors. I know this coming year are going to be doing some research projects, sort of comparing and contrasting the mode, the benefits and what's happening in the mode versus nonvote areas. And also, we're working on another site through my work at the firm Master Natural's program with a comparative site that can be public facing and have information for the public so they can see what it looks like with these different strategies. So. So, yes, lots going on. Absolutely.

[00:16:45] OK.

[00:16:45] And Jack has a question about to what extent do you think lawn care ties into modern masculinity? Jack Hansson feels as if a lot of men tie some sort of masculine pride to using loud machines to control nature and to keep their property in order.

[00:17:04] It's hard to argue with that.

[00:17:07] I mean, it does seem like a us, me, a strongly male dominated activity. And this kind of you know, the much she's mot of conquering nature does seem to go hand in hand with this activity.

[00:17:23] I'm not exactly sure what to say about four we men need to get over that. OK.

[00:17:32] And then again, who is an intern at Sustainable Transportation Vermont as well? Is wondering for many students that are renting.

[00:17:42] How can they talk to their landlords and help get them on board with this project?

[00:17:49] I think, you know, again, it's just having conversations, whether it be your landlord or whether it be your parents. If you happen to come from a place where you grew up with the lawn, I think just sort of making this argument and saying, why do we do this? I think people just don't. People just don't ask the question. People just accept this is how it should be. And there's there's just volumes of evidence that it's it's not a good way to go. So, you know, I think just at every opportunity saying, well. Why do we Why do you know that? Why do we need it to be mowed if not? How about we put off a small area? And I think the best way to go with somebody who's resistant is what if you just do a small border? Start with a small border and see what happens, you know? And little by little, we can see these habitats transform. Really no stop with the amount of area that you would put in for a food garden or grow a food garden instead of mowing the lawn. There's lots of that going on right now during the pandemic.

[00:18:56] Definitely. Definitely.

[00:18:58] We have one intern who's currently working on transforming unused parking spaces into small gardens. So great. That's fantastic. And then Richard just has a comment. He thoughtful in action. He really loves the phrasing of that. And since first hearing your talk about this, he can't help but notice large mow lawns everywhere. And the concept that a moat line is part of being a homeowner seems like it needs to happen. A lawn at a time. Are there other local examples of this?

[00:19:35] Well, the Beth Emina downtown Burlington there, there's Linus Owens has his yard that he's been. He stopped mowing. Years and years and years ago and had some battles with the city and essentially won. I ended up when I found out about him. I gave him one of my signs which he put in the yard, which is actually it's so funny. But just a little sign like that actually helps tremendously. Marking your site, you know, this is why as an artist, I feel so and a designer. I felt so inspired to do this because it's really about esthetics. You know, people don't. People are conditioned to see these spaces as messy, but they're not. They're incredibly rich and diverse and complex. So I think, you know, the one line at the time model is great. And what I hope, like right now, if you're the one yard on the block that chooses not to mow your lawn, you're kind of the outlier, right? You're the freak. My dream for this project and I am. I'm, you know. I don't take for granted that this will be easy to accomplish, but that the person who does mow their lawn is going to be the outlier freak and not the person who doesn't.

[00:20:45] That's what I want to see happen. Definitely. Jacob has another question and he's wondering, do you know of any Burlington or nearby town ordinance that requires some sort of lawn care?

[00:20:58] Yeah, there's a law all over the place. They vary from place to place, a lot of more fairy vague and say, you know, you should just keep a neat yard. You know, you have some requirement. Some communities have a particular amount of inches like your plant growth in your yard can't go over, you know, six or seven inches or else you can get a citation or a fine. In the city of Burlington, I think, you know, Linus's experience shows that it was vague enough that he was able to actually make his case and be allowed to keep his hands off. Beautiful meadow is full of. He planted a bunch of native wildflowers and things in there. So it's a great space.

[00:21:42] So Richard also found it compelling when you say that it is place in your yard, is the mode space, perhaps the idea that bringing these spaces back to life? He's curious. What you have found resonates most with people when you talk about this.

[00:21:59] I think a lot about the language they use with people. It's a lot about.

[00:22:05] Instead of calling it NOMO or unmowed, if you if you talk about it as a meadow, as a pollinator meadow. This is language that has been developed over many years by environmental organizations. National Wildlife Foundation started. There are Backyard Wildlife Habitat Program. Well over a decade ago. And so there's this idea that this, you know, a pollinator friendly space is a good thing. So we just need to keep building upon this kind of these cultural trends that have started. And really showing that the mode landscape, even if you're doing it without using a lot of herbicides and pesticides, still provides nothing for for all of these different layers of complex funnel communities. And so, you know, it's just about that. It's like I have little kids, so I do keep some of my lawn mowed. Ironically, this year I mowed for the eye, mowed a small area for the first time. Less just about a week ago. And my kids were out there arguing with me and telling me not to mow this and not to mow that. But we ended up just mowing some paths around the space that they run around in the parks. And they run through the tall grass. And I love it. So it's all you know, they're growing up with it. So it's normal to them. It's about normalizing an activity, really.

[00:23:35] And for anyone watching that is interested in these kids. How is the best way to get in contact with you?

[00:23:43] Boy, them I'm really easy to find online. If you just type in Brian de Colyer, I have a Web site you can reach me at. B. D. Brian D. Call your dot net. But yeah, if you just search Brian de Colyer online, I'll pop up pretty easily if you do a Google search. You can also find me through my, um, my college Web site. St Michael's College on the faculty there. So you can find me that way as well. And I do respond to emails, so. OK, great.

[00:24:17] Awesome. Thank you. And Tiguan has another question. So her mom longs to take care of weed. So she's taking us wondering how else do people take care of leads or.

[00:24:30] That's a great question. Why are they weeds?

[00:24:35] They're not weeds.

[00:24:36] Actually, most of the plants in our lawn that are considered weeds were actually brought over intentionally by European colonists because they're useful and beneficial plants. Dandelion as a great example of this dandelion. It's hugely beneficial as a food plant, a medicinal plant. It was brought here for that purpose. Now it's the most vilified weed in our garden. Right. People spend huge amounts of effort taking it out. But if you watch it, if you let it grow and actually go to flower, you'll see that it's one of the earliest flowering plants that come out of your lawn. And the pollinators are all over it. It's one of the first plants available to them. And so I don't think it's a weed is a really problematic label. And it's actually one of the one of the things that I'm doing to this project is I have a whole herbarium I'm creating with information called useful plants of the unmowed lawn, which is just pointing out and giving people information that these things that we call weeds are actually you can eat right out of your. And, you know, you can eat these things. You can use them for teams and medicines. They're beneficial for pollinators and all these different purposes. So I think it's not that. How do we get rid of weeds is how do we learn that weeds are not a negative thing?

[00:25:52] Definitely. Definitely.

[00:25:55] So I think that I have one question, but I think this is our last question. I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about the emissions that are tied to landscaping and specifically what machinery is probably the worse to. That's not not.

[00:26:11] Yeah. I mean, that the you know, the two cycle mower is really bad. Actually, the worst tools that people use in lawn care are the leaf blowers. And in gas, partly Rackers, because those are the little two cycle engines. Those are horribly polluting. I mean, I see people where my offices I sometimes look across the street to where this there's this site is mode very frequently. And sometimes I see a crew of four guys with four backpack leaf blowers blowing around about 30 leaves. And it's just insane. It seems like mad. It really does seem like madness. But, you know, there are a lot of great alternatives if you still and I do. I have actually about battery powered mower that I use not very frequently, but I do use it sometimes. So the technology for battery powered machinery is just fantastic now, and it's it's affordable and you don't have to deal with oil and gas. It's very, very easy to use. They don't break down these keep charging. You're good to go for a long time so that, you know, if you do still want to maintain or need to maintain a part of greenspace, I recommend that specifically for real moer. If you have a very small space and just use the old style real mower. It's just a mechanical push device with no motor at all.

[00:27:43] Let's them. Well, thanks so much for being here and answering all these questions. It's been a real pleasure. Yeah. Thank you. OK. So is there anything else you'd like to say or plug or anything before?

[00:27:58] No, just you can go look at the project online. You can find it through either, Brian, you call your dot net or through online America. Dot society are an E net. It's everything's tied together. So if you go to Brian, you call your Dona, you'll find all my stuff.

[00:28:19] OK. Wonderful. OK, so I'm just going to switch to announcing our speaker for next week. Thank you so much for being here. Brian, again, thank you. So next week, we will be discussing trains and more with Melinda and Rick Moulton. Melinda is a co-owner of Main Street Landing. And Rick is a producer and director. So they will be talking about the history of Burlington's waterfront and how it came back to life, the role of Main Street landing and the future of passenger rail. So tune in next Friday at 12:00 to hear Rick and Melinda.

[00:28:58] And thank you all for being here.