Long Term Ecological Monitoring System - Merryall Manse
I’ve daydreamed for years as a member of the Merryall Manse community about how to approach recording our relationship with the Pennsylvania landscape in ways beyond the deeply rich stories passed along from memories of historical floods, when the spring in the forest was rebuilt, the dry years and the loss of our ash trees to the emerald ash borer, when the creek bed moved - and then moved again.
This daydream has grown and somehow percolated in the back of my mind as I focused on becoming a formally trained environmental scientist through college. Now that I have not just the curiosity but the wherewithal to bring a project like designing an ecological monitoring system to light I find myself needing to focus on the roots of this daydream.
Under examination I realize there were two differently toned pillars that have lasted since the early days of this idea:
1) the pure wonder of the property I wandered as a young one, to try and fold the community history with the house into the landscape and vis-versa, the place I learned so much and that still inspires me through to today.
2) the realization that rudimentary baselines of ecological status & health - codified and recorded - would have changed a lot of how the fracking industry would have been able to sweep through Bradford County, taking advantage this sliver of Appalachia - poisoning the communities and landscapes I called home and family.
As an adult the tones of these pillars pressed urgency in me, but in this reflection I realize that I won’t design this from a place of fear, trying to head off loss and potential harm - I’ve decided to fold these two toned pillars into one focus. Agency - I want this ecological monitoring program to be a gift to be stewarded and used by the community for context and planning, a bolster to those stories of what living with this landscape feels like.
To that end, this needs to be approachable - usable by those who aren’t specifically trained to do this for a living. The future potential of this project will be explored as the next year stretches on - spring is beginning and so the areas of focus for this monitoring and the tiers of complexity that are possible vs needed will be clarified further.
Check back soon for updates as you would like!
