The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) works with and for communities to sustain healthy fish, forests and wildlife.  One of the ways in which it does this is by offering funding for conservation-friendly projects in St. Louis area parks through a unique partnership and funding opportunity: The Back to Nature StL Grant.

Applications for the grant should be relevant to the goals of MDC’s Community Conservation Program.  The Back to Nature StL grant supports terrestrial and aquatic habitat improvement in urban area parks, encouraging partnerships for supporting community conservation efforts, native habitat restoration and long-term natural landscape management, and engaging the public through conservation education and volunteer opportunities.

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By Don Corrigan

J.B. Lester, publisher of The Healthy Planet for a quarter century, shrugs off accolades for his nature advocacy and his editorial work to raise awareness on environmental issues. Instead, he describes himself as a messenger or conduit for environmental experts and real champions of the outdoors. He cites his many columnists and free-lance writers.

He is quick to single out one of his scribes, Jean Ponzi, whom he calls “Green Jean.” She is the Green Resources Manager for the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Earthways Center. According to Lester, Ponzi has informed, educated and entertained with prose and poetry on topics ranging from recycling to honeysuckle removal to wildflower gardens.

The Healthy Planet has a stable of writers from organizations such as the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, the Department of Conservation and a host of others. Lester adds a personal touch with his regular column about everything from the lack of social responsibility during a 100-year pandemic to his encounter with a moose on a trip to Colorado.

“My favorite columns are where I can take a magnifying glass to the eco-system in my Webster backyard – whether it’s on the hungry caterpillar on my tomato plants or our annual praying mantis family,” noted Lester. “By looking closely at what is right next to us, we can learn so much about how to view things farther away. I think the artists call this perspective.”

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By Don Corrigan

Talk to J. Marshall Magner and the first thing he would do is disabuse you of any misconception that all insects are bugs. Conversation would often proceed from there and soon was likely to fly over the average human’s head. A frustrated Magner sometimes relied on large models of insects with detachable abdomen, thorax and head to make his scientific points.

When Magner was born in northwest Webster in 1913, the area was woods, farms and a few homes. Young Marshall was in the habit of collecting insects, frogs and snakes on the way home from getting milk from the Smith’s cows in the morning. Sometimes critters got loose in the house. In his teens, he hunted and roamed the woods as far north as Olive Street Road. St. Louis County was still largely rural in his early days.

Magner’s outdoor interest and insect love led him to a career with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In the military in World War II, he served in Europe and Africa. Later, Magner landed with Monsanto Company and he studied insects worldwide, sometimes on long stints in Central America. He shared his collecting skills and knowledge with the youngsters when he returned to Webster Groves. This garnered him the honor of the naming of Larson Park’s children’s playground as “Marshall Magner’s Bug Kingdom.”

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Ready, Set, Go! Visit Forest Park to check out the newly opened 17-acre playscape! Get out and enjoy the natural setting while connecting to nature in a green space for children and the young at heart!

Forest Park Forever details interesting information about some of the elements it took to create the green space, including 1,500 tons of boulders and rock, including Missouri limestone, 30 tons of sand, 1+ miles of paths, 30+ benches made from fallen or hazard local trees, 1500+ wood stump steppers and 300 newly planted trees. See what the addition has to offer in the included video, along with more details about the green space listed below.

Forest Park Forever website: This highly anticipated opening follows nearly two years of construction to transform what had been 17 acres of turf grass into a one-of-a-kind experiential play space with natural landscapes that include native and diverse species. The project was funded by donors to the nonprofit conservancy Forest Park Forever and completed in partnership with the City of St. Louis.

“The Anne O’C. Albrecht Nature Playscape is an experiential green space built to enable visitors, especially children, to connect with nature and engage their senses as they explore, discover and learn. The destination features nine distinct activity areas — including Mounds, a Spring, a Meadow, a Wetland and more — and a series of accessible paths and boardwalks that connect them.”

Anne O’C. Albrecht Nature Playscape By the Numbers

• Playscape Size: 17 acres

• Trees planted: 300

• Shrubs planted: 700

• Perennials Planted: 40,000

• Boulders & Rocks: 1,500 tons, including Missouri limestone

• Paths: 1+ miles

• Boardwalks: 4

• Wood Stump Steppers: 1,500+

• Sand for Play Areas: 30 tons

• Hand Water Pumps: 5

• Boot-Washing Stations: 2

• Benches: 30+ made from fallen or hazard local trees

• Bike Racks: 7

• Drinking Fountains: 3

• Design & Build Cost: $5 million

• Cost to enter and enjoy: $0

Environmental Echo will periodically single out outdoor / environmental heroes who have made a difference in the St. Louis area and beyond. Many of these individuals hail from the Webster Groves – Kirkwood area, where writer Don Corrigan is Editor Emeritus of the weekly Webster-Kirkwood Times. Corrigan is the author of Environmental Missouri by Reedy Press.

by Don Corrigan

Who says environmentalists are all stuffy, humorless, killjoys? Jack Lorenz, who went to Webster Groves High School in the Happy Days era, enjoyed 1950s fast cars, fish stories and cutting up. He sometimes wore a monster mask he called “The Face.” He wore it while in the front seat of buddy Cy Perkin’s car. At a stop light in South St. Louis, they spied Stan the Man in the car next to them. Musial cracked up when “Jack The Face” rolled down the window to let out a hearty, “Hi, Stan!”

No big surprise that Lorenz coached football, basketball and baseball at a prep school while majoring in journalism at the University of Tulsa. He later joined the PR team of Falstaff Brewing, “America’s Premium Quality Beer,” a favorite of another WGHS alumnus named Harry Caray. While hustling Falstaff, Lorenz started a river clean-up campaign and helped create the “Pitch-in” anti-litter campaign.

A growing interest in outdoors lured the lifelong fly fisherman to move to Washington, D.C., to become editor in 1973 of Outdoor America, the magazine of the Izaak Walton League. A year later he was named executive director of the League, a post he would hold for 18 years. During his tenure as CEO of the League, he was asked to the White House to advise Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush. This was in the halcyon days of the environmentalism, when most politicians saw clean air and water, protection of parks and wilderness areas as winning issues.

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