In protecting darkness, conservation finds new light
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About This Saving Land
From California to Connecticut and Texas to Michigan, the conservation work of land trusts can help reduce the harmful effects of light pollution on people, plants and wildlife — and bring in new visitors to experience the wonder of darkness.
Tom Springer has served in several roles for the accredited Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy, including board member, volunteer and writer.
© 2024 Land Trust Alliance, Inc. All rights reserved.
In protecting darkness, conservation finds new light
A ranger gazes at the stars in Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park, a designated International Dark Sky Park.
Photo by Jacob Hogerson/NPS
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It’s the ground underfoot that land trusts know best. The sentient ways of old forests and brooding mountains; the salt tang of tidal marshes and sagebrush reaches of open rangeland. Compared to these tangible places, the idea that we should protect something as intangible as darkness can seem abstract. What is darkness, after all, but the absence of light? And, in a light-saturated world where 80% of North Americans can no longer see the Milky Way, does darkness still serve its age-old purpose? Those are questions that land trusts, no less than scientists or philosophers, may well consider.
“Everything that lives, not vegetative life alone, emerges from darkness and, however strong its natural tendency to thrust itself into the light, it nevertheless needs the security of darkness to grow at all,” said philosopher Hannah Arendt. And this, from environmental ethicist Erazim Kohák: “We are not only creatures of the light. We are creatures of the rhythm of day and night, and the night, too, is our dwelling place.”
While nearly all creatures evolved to require times of darkness, dark skies themselves are in steady retreat. Drive across most U.S. towns at night and it’s easy to see why. In parking lots, full or empty, soaring light towers blaze like supernovas. On roadways, blue LED headlights glare with pupil-searing intensity. In suburbs and the country, clusters of unshielded yard lights push back the restful darkness of fields and forests.
This insidious spread of light pollution doesn’t just obscure the stars and heavens. For wildlife, plants and people, the impacts of light pollution can be disastrous. Artificial light disrupts the ability of animals, birds, fish and insects to rest, feed, migrate and communicate. Baby sea turtles, for instance, are susceptible to lights near nesting beaches that draw new hatchlings inland, away from their ocean home. Too much artificial light can make plants and trees bud early in the spring and thereby risk frost damage. For humans, excess light at night can lower the production of melatonin that we need for sleep (the National Institutes of Health calls melatonin “the hormone of darkness”). And sleep deprivation, as many know firsthand, can cause fatigue, headaches, weight gain, stress and anxiety.
It is birds, though, that often get the worst of it. “Birds have to use things to orient,” says ornithologist Susan Elbin, director of conservation and science emerita at NYC Audubon, in an Audubon magazine story that showed how even benign light pollution can cause lethal confusion. “One of the tools in their kit is celestial cues, so they can use the star maps like early navigators.”
The Tribute in Light serves as a cautionary example. It’s an art installation that shines up to 4 miles into the sky above Lower Manhattan on September 11, its two blue beams a visual memory of the fallen Twin Towers. This stirring display also attracts hundreds upon hundreds of birds that circle in its giant, columnar beams like moths around a porchlight. Disoriented and agitated, they can die or expend vital energy that they need for migration.
Conditions have greatly improved since Elbin, NYC Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology found a workable solution. They use radar to monitor the number of birds in the light beams, count the species and listen for calls that indicate distress. When the count exceeds 1,000, technicians shut off the lights for 20 minutes until the birds move on. It’s a compromise that respects both a hallowed memorial and the wild creatures that are drawn to it.
Keeping light in its place
For land trusts that want to protect dark skies, the good news is this: They already do plenty to combat light pollution. By protecting undeveloped land with little human habitation, they inherently preserve darkness, at no added cost. And, when compared to problems like climate change or invasive species, light pollution offers a simpler fix.
“[Light pollution] is more easily reversible, compared to other conservation challenges,” says Dawn Davies, night sky program manager for the Hill Country Alliance in Austin, Texas. “Changing the color and type of light bulbs, shielding light fixtures, directing light only to where it’s needed and turning off lights when in use—these things go a long way toward getting our view of the stars back.”
HCA promotes awareness and support of natural resources in Central Texas Hill Country. This includes open space preservation, water conservation and, since 2010, “starry night skies.” HCA has helped draft dark sky protection language for use in conservation easements that has been used by land trusts such as the accredited Hill Country Conservancy. HCA also conducts dark sky metering and advises on best practices that towns and cities use to create outdoor lighting ordinances.
In Central Texas, which boasts 10 astronomy clubs, such measures have been well received. “Our climate conditions are so favorable for night skies that it’s part of Texas culture,” says Cliff Kaplan, HCA program director. “‘The stars at night are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas’—as the old song goes.”
While dark sky advocates oppose light pollution, they don’t throw shade on all outdoor lights per se. The real problem, Davies says, is that 30% of outdoor lights shine where they’re not intended. Instead of shining only downward, they beam upward and sideways, where they do little to improve visibility or security. Nationwide, this misdirected light wastes up to $3.3 billion annually in energy costs and creates harmful light pollution for people and wildlife.
As a starting point for dark sky conservation efforts, land trusts can use a sky quality meter to measure the amount of darkness overhead. These cell-phone size devices are easy to operate, cost around $160 and measure light in magnitudes per square arcsecond. The readings help determine the absence or presence of light pollution at a given location. On a property with existing lighting, a nighttime survey with the naked eye can identify lights that may need corrective measures.
With low-cost changes to the lighting around homes, streets and outbuildings, it’s not difficult to improve dark sky visibility and reduce harm to wildlife. HCA recommends three basic fixes: Aim and place shields on light fixtures (many shields sell for $5 to $20) so that light shines only where it’s needed; add switches and timed motion sensors so that lights remain off when not in use; and install “warmer” color temperature bulbs (3,000 Kelvins or lower), which emit light that’s more yellow-hued than harsh white-blue.
Partnering to create dark sky preserves
In 1996, when Tom Bailey helped create the Headlands International Dark Sky Park near Mackinaw City, Michigan, the galaxies above were not a selling point. It was the 2.5 miles of wild Lake Michigan beach along the Straits of Mackinac, a narrow convergence where 16 species of migrating raptors make passage. “I’d love to say we had dark skies in mind when we acquired Headlands, but we didn’t,” says Bailey, then executive director of Little Traverse Conservancy. “It was just typical land conservation work.”
Attendees of Little Traverse Conservancy's nighttime storytelling program gather around a campfire at Headlands International Dark Sky Park near Mackinaw City, Michigan.
Photo by Robert DeJonge
Bailey worked with Mackinaw City and Emmet County Parks and Recreation to raise state funds that bought the 450-acre parcel (which has since expanded to 600 acres). LTC holds the park’s conservation easement. Until 2005, Headlands was a no-frills place on an unpaved road. Then Mary Stewart Adams— whom Bailey calls “a force of nature”— proposed a preposterous, albeit prophetic, vision to the Emmet County Board of Commissioners. “I pitched the idea of a dark sky park and told them that people would come from all over the world to see it,” says Adams. “And they laughed! But they supported our idea to request dark sky designation.”
Bailey and Adams helped draft legislation that was signed by Gov. Rick Snyder. It granted dark sky protection to the park, along with 20,000 acres of adjoining state forestland. In 2011, Headlands was named the nation’s sixth dark sky park by DarkSky International (formerly called the International Dark-Sky Association). While Adams’ vision seemed prescient, she’d actually hedged her bet: She’d known that the Venus transit — a once-everycentury astronomical event — was coming in 2012.
In “Field of Dreams” fashion, people came from near and far to see the Venus transit at Headlands. Thousands rumbled down a dusty dirt road that was too narrow and into a parking lot that was too small to hold them. Headlands didn’t even have indoor restrooms. Seeing the opportunity for Dark Sky tourism, LTC helped raise funds for a $250,000 telescope, while the park built an event center and overnight rental housing.
“We didn’t want to build too much infrastructure, but we needed enough to meet human needs,” Adams says.
A star lore historian, Adams herself isn’t the gadget type. Her programs encourage humans to experience the night sky as they did for untold centuries: with the naked eye. With her humanities background, she interprets the night sky through poetry, literature, traditional life ways and mythology. “This places humans at the center of their natural environment, within its majesty. It’s difficult to know the night sky if you only see one star through a telescope. I want them to understand stars as constellations that relate to another. For that, you can use maps—not apps.”
Darkness in unlikely places
The “Pillars of Creation” in the Eagle Nebula (m16) are visible in this image taken by The Beast telescope at Lyme Land Trust’s Trail 53 Observatory in Lyme, Connecticut.
Photo by Alan Sheiness
An eastern state like Connecticut may not seem like dark sky country. Not when you see the white-hot blob of light pollution that blazes along the D.C.-Boston corridor. But zoom in closer and you’ll find dark pockets that support popular night sky programs, such as those run by Lyme Land Trust and New Canaan Land Trust.
It helps that in Lyme, located on the Connecticut River, more than half of the town’s acreage is already protected. LLT has conserved over 3,000 acres as fee-owned parcels and easements, while The Nature Conservancy, town and state safeguard much of the rest. Nonetheless, it’s LLT’s work with local government that has helped make dark skies a town priority.
“Dark skies have been on the town’s agenda for 20 years,” says Kristina White, LLT’s executive director and Lyme selectperson. “We started with a focus on river docks, where too much glare off the river bothers people, birds, fish and animals. Now the town’s planning commission won’t allow a site plan to move forward unless the outdoor lighting faces down.”
LLT has built its night sky programs around astronomy events and education programs led by its treasurer, Alan Sheiness. He’s an amateur astronomer and astrophotographer. Yet Sheiness says it was White who inspired him to do more. During Covid, White hiked every one of LLT’s trails, a peripatetic feat that earned her a 52-Trail Challenge t-shirt. And when Sheiness heard of it, a stellar idea came to mind: “Why not make another trail that goes overhead?”
The Beast telescope at Lyme Land Trust’s Trail 53 Observatory in Lyme, Connecticut
Photo by Roger Charbonneau
The Trail 53 Observatory does just that. On a field that Sheiness owns, protected by an LLT easement, he built a 12’ x 12’ structure with a retractable roof. It opens up to reveal The Beast: a 14” LX850 telescope linked to a 4K monitor that projects real-time images of stars. On a clear night, a half-dozen astronomers may set up telescopes nearby. Along with his talks to community groups, the Trail 53 viewing sessions have made Sheiness a celestial celebrity of sorts. “When I’m in town, or on a golf cart path, I’ll meet people who say, ‘Hey, you’re the astronomer guy,’” he says. “But I may not recognize them because we met in the dark!”
Fireflies light the night
In nearby New Canaan, the green pulsations that illumine the night can easily fit—and sometimes do—into a mayonnaise jar. They blink in unison by the untold thousands at NCLT’s Firefly Preserve in early July. It’s a 6.5–acre suburban oasis that exists because homeowners Bill and Mary-Ellen MacDonald planted a meadow 50 years ago where turf grass once prevailed. Unknowingly, they created a refuge where fireflies have become stunningly, even mystically, abundant.
“I grew up around fireflies and thought I knew what to expect,” says Elle Smith, events and outreach coordinator for NCLT. “But this is nothing like that; it’s magical. It’s like looking out on twinkling strings of light that were strewn among the grass and trees.”
NCLT owns the pocket preserve and manages the firefly tours. They open up registration at 9 a.m. one week before a tour, and the slots often fill by 9:15 a.m. Before each tour a host meets with guests by the parking area to explain a few rules. There are no phones or flash photos allowed, although guests can borrow a red-lens flashlight to guide their way. Guests can wear bug spray, but only the organic kind with no harmful chemicals that interfere with firefly pheromones. Tours leave around 8:30 p.m. and most guests stay for 30-45 minutes. The season runs seven days a week for 2 ½ weeks and NCLT charges $5 for entry, mainly to prevent no-shows.
After a New York Times story on the preserve appeared last year, interest has skyrocketed. Smith says NCLT will soon open a second, larger firefly preserve nearby with easier access for those with limited mobility. There, too, they hope to preserve the reverent atmosphere that a dark sky alive with nature’s luminaries elicits from visitors.
“People speak in hushed tones here, even though fireflies aren’t sound-sensitive,” Smith says. “We’ve had high-school kids come here to mow our trails who were nervous about where to step. There’s this sense of care and respect for these wonderful creatures.”
Wisdom protects "unadulterated beauty"
Under the sheer black of a new moon, a team of young women drives for hours over rough roads in the Mojave Desert to reach an obscure spot where they’ll pitch tents for the night. But theirs is no campout. As budding scientists, they’ll take measurements of the dark sky overhead as part of a larger campaign to help keep it that way.
“They’ll see shooting stars and the Milky Way as never before; you might see a kit fox, bats or night-blooming flowers,” says Mary Cook-Rhyne, education program manager for Mojave Desert Land Trust. “It’s such unadulterated beauty. When you’re surrounded by all the stars you feel more connected to the Earth.”
The college-age field researchers are interns with the Women In Science Discovering Our Mojave (WISDOM) program. Equipped with a sky quality meter, they took monthly readings at 16 sites in the Mojave Trails National Monument during their six-month internship.
“WISDOM gives underserved women a chance to get outdoors and get their foot in the door toward a career in science, technology, engineering and math,” Cook-Rhyne says. The land trust developed WISDOM in 2019 and runs the program with support from the Bureau of Land Management and the Conservation Lands Foundation. Applicants must be in college or have graduated within the past two years. On average, MDLT chooses nine interns from a field of some 30 applicants.
The WISDOM interns did much of their work in 2020-21 and will continue in 2024. Now, BLM is using their data as it pursues DarkSky support for Mojave Trails. DarkSky International oversees a rigorous certification process to designate places as dark sky sanctuaries, parks and reserves. There are 18 dark sky sanctuaries worldwide, nine of which are in the United States. International Dark Sky Week will be April 2-8 this year — find out how you can get involved.
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