By Frank Young

Naturalized Area

About 10 miles south of my home near Ripley, along Interstate Route 77, is a small brown and white sign on a post in the guardrails. It says "Naturalized Area." The sign is about a foot square, brown letters on a white background, similar to signs designating trails and sites in state and national parks. It appears to have been installed by the Department of Highways.

One evening late last summer I stopped to see what kind of "naturalized area" existed right along this interstate highway. What I found, or didn't find, was confusing. In this officially designated "naturalized area" was a long narrow strip of land, maybe an acre. This was not clearly marked by either artificial or natural boundaries except for a guardrail and a right of way fence spaced about forty feet apart.

It contained two brush trees, with trunks about the size of my legs, a small birdhouse on one of them, and dry, uncut broomsage grass about knee high -- sort of like my back yard in August. That's all. No wetland, no tree that would be more than a few years old, no flowers, and no wildlife that I saw. There might have been a box turtle hiding in the grass, trying to develop the courage to attempt a four lane road crossing. Considering that it is an area directly adjacent to interstate highway pavement, I doubt that enough humus topsoil is present there to support a respectable colony of microbes. The area is actually a rather sterile road bank. Yet, the Department of Highways has designated this as a "Naturalized Area."

Now, I do not know how "natural" an area has to become before it is a "naturalized area." But when I think of natural areas in this region I think of trees at or near maturity, the presence of water or evidence that water was recently there, the presence of at least some wildlife, soil with a humus content that supports grubs and other critters, the presence of bugs and insects in summer and dozens of other characteristics which, taken together, feel "natural" to a soul while recreating there. In my mind, the presence of a seventy-mile-an-hour four lane highway only a few feet away totally obliterates any "natural" qualities to an area.

But then, what do I know? Maybe a "naturalized area" is all a state of mind. Maybe by putting up a sign and a birdhouse, and letting the grass grow for a season, the Department of Highways conditions thousands of travelers, going along at seventy miles an hour, burning tons of fuel and belching more tons of exhaust gases, leaving tons of tire rubber dust and assorted other waste in their wake, to think that they are near a "Naturalized Area." The travelers feel good, knowing that they are enjoying a "Naturalized Area" only twenty feet away. How do they know? An official sign on the guardrail tells them so!

Now, the Department of Highways thinks it is good at road building. But I question their judgement about what constitutes a natural area. Their logic that they can somehow "naturalize" an area by putting up a birdhouse, and a sign, is twisted, distorted, demented. What's the harm? Maybe only a little. Maybe a lot. How many folks, young and old, will never know what it means for an area to be natural unless the road sign says it is? How many of them will never seek to stand in a forest where one cannot see direct sunlight at high noon? How many will never stop to listen to a roaring creek cascade down a waterfall or along a rocky creek bed? How many will never experience the sounds and sites of wildlife other than the thud and the crumpled car hood from a collision with a deer on that interstate highway? Why won't they? Because the sign on the guardrail didn't tell them about these other, more genuine natural areas.

The more we try to naturalize, the further from a natural state we take things. To truly naturalize, the environment must be left alone, to be natural. Mankind can live in harmony with nature. But mankind can no more "naturalize" than fish can humanize or devils can make holy.