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Historic preservation saves birds' habitat, too

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We suspect that it’s merely a happy coincidence that International Migratory Bird Day served as the opening bookend for Historic Preservation Week.

Traditionally, only a few eccentric souls are likely to be devoted to preserving both species and buildings.

This is a good moment to recognize the connection between preserving that greenest of buildings— the one long since constructed — and the various species, including our own, that inhabit the Earth.

A bird count, taken about the same time at the same location each year, tracks how different species are doing. A migratory count, like the one at Floracliff Nature Preserve in Lexington on Saturday, checks to see which and how many visitors stop by on their way from one place to another.

If birds don’t find the food, water and lodging they need to survive and thrive from start to finish, their numbers diminish, and the count reflects that.

They suffer from tropical forests cleared for farming or cut to provide exotic woods for construction. When wetlands are filled in, birds lose critical stopovers that provide both food and water. Farmland or woods cleared for developments shrink birds’ options even further.

We do a lot of things that destroy habitat and add to climate change, but building is one of the most critical. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that we in the United States produce almost twice as much greenhouse gas constructing and operating buildings as we do driving or flying in planes.

Each house or other structure represents trees that have already been cut, bricks fired and the fuel burned to haul materials to the construction site. Environmentally, we’ve already made an investment. That’s why preservation matters — environmentally as well as culturally.

Save the buildings, save the birds.

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