EcoSense for Living

JENNY: On this episode of Ecosense... JENNY ZELLER: I'm standing here in front of 2,000 gallons of water, and we discovered that it takes this much water to produce one pair of jeans.

DEBORAH NOVGORADOFF: What are they thinking, to run a high pres.. methane gas pipeline, which is highly flammable through this very unstable land?

BILL NAPPER: It's like this little forest fairy that lights up and flies through the forest at night, totally mesmerizing.

JENNIE GARLINGTON: Bernheim Forest and Arboretum is one of the best-kept open secrets in the southern United States.

This land, saved through a fortune made in bourbon, becomes more precious with every passing year.

Can you give me the history of Ber.. MELISSA RALEY: So, our founder was Isaac Wolf Bernheim, who was a Jewish German immigrant who came to the United States as a teenager in the 1860s and made his way selling things door to door.

He eventually made his way to Kentucky, and he started the I.W.

Harper brand of bourbon, and made his fortune in the bourbon industry.

And as an older man, decided that he wanted to give back to the people of Kentucky, to the people of this country for being able to live that American dream.

ANDREW BERRY: Back in 1928, Mr. Bernheim and his support staff started accumulating the lands that we now know as Bernheim Forest.

His vision back then was really remarkable.

This was one of the first conservation areas that was established in Kentucky.

He wanted it to be a sanctuary for the birds.

He wanted us to restore wildlife like deer and turkey.

It required a lot of forethinking for Mr. Bernheim to recognize the need for a place like that in central Kentucky that could act as a wildlife refuge, a place to regenerate forests, and a place to connect people with nature.

MARK WOURMS: It had been overgrazed and logged and had salt licks on it and had some iron ore mining going on.

But he knew that nature was restorative and regenerative, and now 95 years later, we've increased the size of that land.

The forest is almost old growth in many areas.

We have beautiful prairies and all kinds of other wildlife habitat, and we entertain about 300 to 350,000 people a year in our programs.

ANDREW: We have been patient and allowed the beavers and the otters to come back to Bernheim.

We've restored habitats like pollinator, prairies, wetlands, forests, created a habitat and a home for these wildlife to come back to.

Now, we've got over 50 mammal species that are known for Bernheim, over 230 species of birds, over 900 species of plants and we keep discovering more and more every year.

JENNIE: Can you tell me about your database of some 4,000 plants and trees here?

MELISSA: Yeah, so we have a plant database that you can access on our website so anyone can really learn how to be a botanist and really introduce themselves to the world of plants.

And what I also love about Bernheim, our arboretum, which is about 600 acres, our.. our accessioned plants are marked with a plaque that says what their species are.

So, say you have a magnolia tree in your backyard that you really love, but you don't know exactly what it is.

You can come and explore our Magnolia collection, which has 81 different taxa, and it was just accredited as part of the American Public Gardens Association as an accredited magnolia collection.

So, you can come and explore those and figure out what species you have in your backyard.

JENNIE: How do you incorporate art into Bernheim and why is this important to get people connected to nature through art?

MARK: Art allows you to observe bold, beautiful, wonderful, crazy things sometimes, and then use your heart and your mind to really figure out, how are these things.. Art often can get you to feel things that science doesn't.

We use art as a bridge to have people come through our front gate.

Because once we get people through our front gate, they're hooked.

JENNIE: Why is art important in the forest?

JENNY ZELLER: Well, I feel like art can really help make sense of complicated facts.

There's a lot of natural phenomena that takes place in a forest, and art can really help illuminate elements within the natural world easier in ways than science and education can do sometimes.

JENNIE: One of the most popular attractions in Bernheim is Thomas Dambo's Giants, three imaginative protectors of the forest... MELISSA: We have three of these trolls, these giants that Thomas Dambo created out of recyclable material and they're along a one mile trail.

So, by the time you hike it and come back to our visitor center, you're on a two mile trail.

And the beautiful thing about that is, that people, if you were to ask your family member with little kids and their parents, "Hey, why don't you come out to Bernheim and do a two mile walk with me?"

They would say, "Oh no, I can't do that."

But people come out all the time, multi-generational families to hike this trail.

I've seen kids in strollers and grandparents and bachelor parties all on the trail to see the giants.

So, art is something that really brings people together.

And we found, in 2019, when they were installed, we used to have about 250,000 visitors a year and that year it doubled, to 500,000.

People have come from all over the country, from multiple countries abroad, to see the giants.

JENNIE: So, tell me about some of your conservation minded art exhibits.

JENNY Z: This installation is called H2Oh!

It's by Studio Mayo Architects.

It's based on a scientific document by Howard Perlman from the US Geological Survey.

And so, what this installation shows us is how limited our water resources are at a human tangible scale.

So, the hoop that you see here is actually the scale of the earth at one inch equals 20 miles.

The dimension of that hoop is the size of the atmosphere surrounding the earth.

And then, this pond that you see below demonstrates the amount of water that is on the earth.

Again, we all think that there's a lot of water because it covers 70% of the Earth's surface and flows.

However, that doesn't go very deep in the mass of the Earth itself.

So it's equivalent to sweat on an apple.

JENNIE: Tell me about that actual installation for fast fashion.

What are you trying to portray?

JENNY Z: So, the installation titled, "At Least We Looked Good," is several components in one.

We have a very large clothesline strung throughout the forest, which is just playful and fun, and we have water tanks set up as well.

I'm standing here in front of 2,000 gallons of water, and we discovered that it takes this much water to produce one pair of jeans.

JENNIE: So people, you think they get it after they go into that exhibit?

JENNY Z: Yes, I do.

It's playful and fun, but also really informative and designed to provoke thought around the topic.

JENNIE: Can you tell me about the project you're doing for children?

MELISSA: We are really a forerunner in the natural play movement.

So, we have the Children at Play Network and we work with other partners across the region to teach them how to facilitate free play in nature.

We also have a 17 acre natural playground that is a place for children to really experience what it's like to spend time in nature.

There are natural elements to scramble on and climb on.

There are loose parts like crates to build with.

You can make forts and create new games.

There's a giant sandpit that is wheelchair accessible and big swings.

And my favorite, having grown up on a farm, it's 10 acres of fenced in Kentucky woodlands.

So, as much as we are inviting children to come and be more comfortable in nature, we're inviting their caregivers to take a little bit of a step back and let them really explore healthy risk, to engage in collaborative play, and to just really be in nature.

So, we know that that is really inspiring the next generation of environmental stewards.

What's really fun about Bernheim is that there's something for everybody.

There's something for all people and there's something for all animals.

We have lakes, we have ponds, we have creeks, and a prairie that's being restored to be a habitat for animals that have been really forced out of their homes like quail.

So, we've been able to reintroduce quail into our big prairie.

And we've also found that those quail have migrated to nearby farms and repopulated nearby farms.

JENNIE: So, what gives you hope for the future?

MARK: You know what gives me hope for the future are people.

We have the choice to do better.

We have some young people who are just so dynamic and care so much about the Earth.

We have elderly people who are saying, "You know what?

I don't want to leave a poisonous planet to my children and their children."

We have people of every ilk who want to do the right thing for each other and for the environment and for the economy, and don't see those in conflict.

That's what gives me hope.

JENNIE: Bernheim Forest and Arboretum is a wealth of nature just half an hour from fast-growing Louisville, Kentucky.

Can its conservation status continue to protect it for generations to come?

What kind of wildlife are you protecting here at Bernheim?

MARK: Oh, Bernheim is rich with biodiversity.

I'm very proud to say.

And part of that is because we have forests, fields, meadows, streams, wetlands, and we restore those habitats and steward those habitats for biodiversity.

We have 86 species of snails and slugs.

And some of those snails are very, very rare, found only in a few places on earth.

But we also have 263 or so birds a year that come through migratory or resident.

Bobcats, mink, otters, you know, all kinds of wonderful wildlife is abundant at Bernheim.

At the lower levels, we have soft wood forest.

At the higher levels, we have oak, hickory, hardwood forests, and that makes a big difference for.. We do prescribed burns to keep our meadows open.

We do stream restorations.

So, Bernheim doesn't just let nature happen, we assist nature in happening.

JENNIE: So, what are some of the biggest threats to Bernheim right now?

ANDREW: Population increases have been occurring in Louisville ever since it was established back in 1780.

One of the biggest problems that we're having right now is that Bernheim is being cut off and isolated from other protected areas.

Wildlife corridors exist along streams, along knobs, and there are other protected areas around Bernheim that we once were more connected to, but now those connections are being severed.

So working to try to protect those linkages while we still can, because once you put a neighborhood in there or you build a road or a pipeline through that area, those linkages can be broken permanently.

MARK: Unfortunately, our local energy company wants to put in a 12 mile pipeline across Bullitt County, and that pipeline would pump hydrocarbons for about the next 70 years.

They want to break a conservation easement on our land, and a conservation easement is supposed to be a legal protection in the perpetuity to keep that land wild.

ANDREW: Back in 2018, we were able to close on a property called the Cedar Grove Wildlife Corridor.

When we purchased that land, one of the requirements was that we put a conservation easement and deed restrictions on that property, essentially saying that Bernheim was going to protect that site in perpetuity, protect the natural features, protect the habitats for those rare, thre.. and endangered species, and also that we were going to steward it in a way that wouldn't damage the forest, the geology, the waterways and all that.

DEBORAH: It's really a travesty, is the word that occurs to me that they're planning to run this pipeline through the wildlife corridor.

DANICA: People are concerned about a lot of different aspects of the pipeline coming through Bernheim.

The first, of course, is that Bernheim is a really beloved place near Louisville and in Kentucky.

It's one of the largest tracts of forest that exists in our state.

And people don't want to see it broken up by a pipeline.

DEBORAH: This pipeline will in fact cut down 40 acres of trees, be tremendously disruptive to the land.

DANICA: The land is made of karst and limestone, and it has sinkholes and it is prone to landslides and it has a lot of underground streams and aboveground streams, and waterways that would be really affected by the pollution and the building of a pipeline through this area.

They need to do what's called hydrostatic testing, which means that they test the pipeline with water, but it also uses quite a lot of chemicals to test that pipeline.

So, there's a lot of disruption and destruction in the area.

DEBORAH: What are they thinking, to run a high pressure methane gas pipeline, which is highly flammable, through this very unstable land?

It's really unsafe and it's terribly detrimental to wildlife.

The pipeline itself was approved by our Public Service Commission, the PSC, without any public input whatsoever, which is one of the things that disturbs me about this.

The PSC approved it when the utility had consultants come in to figure out what the best route was.

The consultancy recommended something like ten or eleven routes.

None of them were through Bernheim, and so I don't really understand then how they got from none of them being Bernheim to one through Bernheim, through the Cedar Grove Wildlife Corridor.

DANICA: Citizens are going to be paying for it and not the energy company.

The law says that the energy company can take this land using eminent domain, but that's in direct conflict with the conservation easement.

So, this is a real problem that we need to figure out.

Does a conservation easement have any standing?

It should.

It should.

ANDREW: You know, the people that live downstream get clean water because of Bernheim, they get reduced flooding because of Bernheim.

The people that live downwind to Bernheim get a cooler climate and more mitigation from strong storms and winds.

They also get better access to biodiversity and nature and the wildlife that we all love.

So while Bernheim doesn't want to stand opposed to development, we just want to make sure that conservation can keep pace with development.

MARK: I think the real choice is do we want to continue using traditional energy sources, hydrocarbons, such as coal, oil, natural gas, and pay the economic price and the environmental price for that dirty water, dirty air, unhealthy communities?

Or do we want to be leading the way and really use green sources of energy?

JENNIE: Can you tell me about these warehouses that are popping up along Bernheim's borders?

ANDREW: Unfortunately, what we've seen here around Bernheim is some big box warehouses that are pretty much storage faciliti.. that are being sold on the internet or other kinds of retail.

While we're not against growth in our community, we think it needs to be smart, strat.. We see that these warehouses are impacting the area through noise pollution downwind, light pollution.

They are causing increased runoff and flooding because of the impermeability of the structures and their parking lots.

We're also seeing loss of biodiversity on those spaces.

A lot of those areas where the big box warehouses now are used to be farm fields.

Those are lost opportunities now and we're never going to get those back because those pieces of ground have been permanently impacted.

And so, Bernheim is continuing to figure out how do we work with some of these new neighbors that we have in the development community and how do we offer them opportunities to offset some of their impacts to Bernheim?

JENNIE: Here in Bernheim, how are you seeing climate change affect your area?

MARK: There's no question.

We're seeing many of the effects that much of the country is seeing.

We're seeing much more severe storms.

They come in and hit like a monster sometimes for shorter duration, but really intense rains and winds and lightning.

We're seeing tough, tough, tough droughts.

We go from too much rain to too little rain overnight, it seems.

We're also seeing more invasive species.

And in fact, invasive species moving up from the south, as the winter's warm, some insect pests are moving this way.

JENNIE: So, what are some of the ways that Bernheim protects this area from climate change?

MELISSA: Just by being 16,142 acres in size, we are able to have this pocket of being a carbon sink, this pocket of creating clean, healthy air for all of us to breathe.

We're able to clean miles and miles of streams, and that is really providing an effect far beyond the borders of Bernheim.

We want to inspire our neighbors, our visitors, to also make the choices that they can make at home.

And that could be something really big like going solar, but it could also be something small like choosing not to use a plastic bag.

And all of us can make those choices every day.

And that's what we want to inspire people to do.

JENNIE: If you ever get the chance to go on a nature adventure at night, you should take it.

The natural world and everything in it, magically transforms after sunset.

BILL NAPPER: I specialize in night programs, so you might call me a volunteer night naturalist.

When I first began volunteering at Bernheim, because of my work schedule, it worked out best for me to volunteer on night programs.

And there was a couple at the time, there was full moon hikes and there was a couple of astronomy programs.

The critters I take people out to see involve ones that are primarily -- you can enjoy them by either seeing them, which isn't easy to do at night always, or by hearing them because the sense of sound is very impactful on us in the right environment, especially at night when your other senses aren't doing you too much good like vision.

Frogs, believe it or not, frogs are amazing.

We do owl prowls and we also, well, I try to sneak in public programs related to katydids and crickets because they're very underappreciated.

But once we have people here, they're blown away by 'em.

My fascination with fireflies started as a child.

Growing up in this region, you can't help but notice them.

As soon as that sun began to set, you would see these little insects in your backyard glowing green, and they were moving slow, and low to the ground.

It just beckons you to go explore and see what that was all about.

But where it really took off was when I was scouting for whip-poor-wills for a public program I wanted to lead.

I'm standing under the forest canopy.

So dark, I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, and all of a sudden, I saw this green light glowing about three feet above the ground, and it didn't flash.

It continuously glowed and kind of maneuvered and flew around the base of the trees, and it continued glowing for so long that I lost tracking of that one, but I saw another one and then another one, and of course that's what we call our Blue Ghost firefly that we have in this region.

It doesn't flash like the ones you see in your backyard.

It's like this little forest fairy that lights up and flies through the forest at night, totally mesmerizing.

To illustrate how rare they are, I've lived here my whole life, and I'd never experienced them before that moment in Bernheim that I was describing where I was scouting for whip-poor-wills.

You can find them in Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, and other states as well.

It was a surprise to me as well to learn that fireflies are toxic.

And I guess it shouldn't have been a surprise, because it's awfully brave for a small insect to go out at night and glow brightly to get noticed and not be eaten by something.

So, in an attempt to thwart that, they have a chemical defense.

So, it's true that a lot of our firefly species are toxic.

But there's an interesting twist to the story because there's two ways to become toxic as a firefly.

One is to eat a plant that has the toxic compounds.

The other is to eat a firefly that has already eaten the plant to make it toxic.

So, we have a whole group of fireflies here in Bernheim that will imitate the flash of other species to draw them in.

And it's the females that do it.

They fake them out by mimicking that species' unique flash and then grab them and eat them.

And that, as gruesome as that sounds, let me put it in context because she's actually doing that for a reason.

She wants to pass that toxic compound on to her babies.

The number one threat facing fireflies and most threatened wildlife is loss of habitat.

And it's really tricky with fireflies because a firefly, in its adult stage, only lives two weeks on average.

So, what we all recognize as a firefly for the rest of its life, you would not even know it was a firefly.

The habitat that they need during that stage called the larva stage is ground.

And as we know, ground is being disturbed all the time, and it can wipe out a firefly population.

So, habitat loss is number one.

And then, on top of that, you have light pollution being extremely important to a creature that communicates with light.

So, its light gets drowned out, can't compete with a bright light.

So, obviously, that's a problem.

I always turn around by saying light pollution is one of the most solvable pollutions that we have.

As soon as we have the will and want to do it, all we have to do is turn them off or redirect them and it will do wonders.

So, that's good news for that type of pollution versus others.

One more thing is climate change, because they have tried to raise fireflies in controlled habitats and more often than not, they're not successful because the eggs require such a controlled humidity that a lot of times when they try to raise them in captivity, they don't succeed.

So, obviously, with climate change, humidity and moisture and things like that is also changing and detrimental to them.

We have guests who specifically come here from cities and urban areas that don't get to experience fireflies, and they want to experience that magic for themselves.

It's that innate need that humans have for wonder that brings them here to experience that.

And I just feel like in the end, Bernheim and places like Bernheim will play that role in helping us all remember where we came from and where we are and where we're going.

So, I would say that Bernheim has a very, dare I say, bright future, but let's just hope that's not at night.