Habitat Lost 

The wild landscape of the Western United States is being rapidly converted to a built landscape due to suburban development. The destructive nature of these large-scale developments immediately disrupts the ecosystems. Even after these developments are completed, they continue to destroy the adjacent environment in the wild-land urban interface due to human caused wildfires, habitat fragmentation, enhancing invasive species migration, surface and groundwater pollution, soil erosion, and pesticide impacts on wildlife. Habitat Lost is a response to this uncontrolled ecological destruction.

The work is comprised of large 20” x 30” black and white, digital prints of the constructed environment. Furthering the dialogue of environmental loss, small fabric kallitype prints, encased in encaustic wax, of the lost wildlife and habitat, hang in front of the black and white images, creating an unorthodox diptych. This body of work relates to western society’s desire to replace natural land and environments with contemporary construction and developments.

The environmental impacts from suburban developments are pervasive, widespread and not easily resolved. Changes to zoning requirements, community planning, and the use of infill development can provide short term mitigation to the onslaught of environmental damage from rampant over-development. However, long-term preservation of biodiversity will require us to embrace the moral principles of ecocentric thought, accepting that all living things have intrinsic value and are interconnected. This conversion of ethical thought will not occur overnight, but failure to move in this direction will continue to adversely affect our ecological sustainability, leading to further disruption of habitats and the extinction of species.