A Love Letter from Illinois Part 2

The state of Illinois is 57,915 square miles and has 32,113 acres of designated wilderness.  By comparison, Washington State is 71,362 square miles and has 4,527,936 acres of wilderness.

Today I spent my day hiking at two state parks, Starved Rock and Matthiessen.  Starved Rock is named such, based on a story that a band of Native Americans, were chased up the rock (by another tribe) and surrounded.  They eventually starved on top of the rock.  There are no actual records of this story and for some reason I don't completely buy it.  Starved Rock has become a big tourist destination because a number of bald eagles winter here. 
I had a great time wandering around here, noticing the little flowers and other plants budding up and noticing the different species of birds, that we do not have in Washington and the different voices they have when singing.
Starved rock also has some pretty nice canyons.  The one sad part is that people don't really seem to care too much about the limited natural space here.  At every turn, there were plastic bottles and other debris.  At the base of one particularly nice waterfall, there was a pair of wet socks laying in the mud.  At one point, I was reminded of the saying, "Nothing is sacred.".  I really feel like the world would be in much better shape if we instead treated everything sacred.

I have never thought of Illinois as a very beautiful state, when it comes to nature, however, it has always resonated with me in it's pastoral beauty.  There was something about all the old barns and gigantic corn fields that has always really seemed special to me.  This is the land I am from and I always felt that in some way, the corn fields were somehow home for me.  I acknowledge that agriculture has done lots of damage to natural habitat and paved the way for industrialization but I have still been able to see the beauty in the rural. 

Now, the farmland is quickly disappearing.  Illinois really seems to have developed an unhealthy love of strip malls.  Again, I acknowledge my overly romantic views of farmland but regardless of the harm that agriculture has done to the environment, I can't help but see how it still is so much better, cleaner and at least somewhat in line with the natural flow of things, than miles and miles of paved roads, fast food restaurants and clothing stores.  Since 1950, Illinois has lost 3.6 million acres of farmland, which averages out to be almost 77,000 acres a year. (http://www.agr.state.il.us/Environment/LandWater/farmlandprot.html)
Illinois is a huge food producing state, known for it's rich black soil but this is all being covered over.  If things continue the way they are going, I can only see it ending in food shortages and disaster.  Of course the people who own the stores will still be able to afford food, as the prices are driven up.  It is the middle and lower class folks, who shop at these establishments who will pay the ultimate price.

How have we, as a society, allowed this to happen?  Why have we removed ourselves from the bigger picture that we are just a small part of, yet so dependent on?  When will this sickness that is in all of us end?  I am afraid that it won't and that leaves me feeling pretty bleak.

First we destroy the forests and waterways, that in most cases, historically supplied people with an abundance of food.  We build farms where we can tame and fence in plants and animals.  Then we pave over the farms and replace them with stores where we can buy plastic trinkets that we do not need and food that poisons us, rather than nuturing us.  What is the next step in this progression?  I for one, do not want to know.
We are all disassociated from the very world we live in and have replaced it with a virtual world, that is unsustainable.  How can we heal the sickness, that lives so deeply within us all?