The natural world on planet earth is becoming second commodity to the technological one. Although the ramifications of disrupting the environment are well studied and documented, companies and governments continue to invest in infrastructures that directly and negatively affect the natural world around us. Even through nature always finds a way to sustain itself, it is important to note that no one has the right answer or solution to the problem called Life. As of today, no one (living or A.I.) on this planet is more intelligent than the biosphere: Earth. This great oasis in the cosmos has been experimenting, building, destroying and learning for the past four billion years! The way Earth has set up ecological systems is intentional. Organisms grow along side of each other, some acting as food or as shade. All playing a crucial roll. Disrupting this balance on a small scale can be devastating to the local ecosystem, but as the disruptions get bigger, so does the effect on the biosphere as a whole. 

Not knowing what the future holds is daunting. 

If the human race is interested in a long term, sustainable existence on Earth, we need to learn about the organic infrastructure that already exists and learn from it. This starts with education. Luckly, learning about the world outside the human world we’ve built is one of the most rewarding experiences of the 21st-Century!

That’s why knowing that the lizard scurrying across the pavement into the bush is a Six-lined Racerunner or that the flower bush growing next to my front door is St. John’s Wort, is pretty cool!

The Juniper Creek Catalogue is the documentation of a learning experience, a practice in the art of observation and, if nothing else, a great time spent at the creek.