Golf and the Environment
From Audubon International - The Benefits of Naturalization
For many people, answering the question "Why Naturalize?" when posed by employees, committees, or neighbors can be an unsettling prospect. Successfully communicating the many benefits of naturalization can make or break support for establishing wildflower or prairie areas, naturalized desert areas, naturalized pond or stream shorelines, and golf course roughs.
The Environmental Benefits of Naturalization
- Maintains a diversity of plants and animals.
- Protects ecosystems and ecological communities.
- Improves water quality.
- Maintains the gene pool of particular plant and animal species, promoting hardiness, disease resistance, and adaptability.
- Minimizes erosion.
- Supports an aesthetic appreciation of natural beauty.
- Creates positive, progressive, and constructive attitudes about the natural environment.
- Promotes stewardship of the environment and contributes to the conservation of local wildlife species.
- Maintains the food chain for a variety of wildlife species.
- Enhances "structural diversity" of plants along the pond margin. Plants of varying heights and types increase wildlife diversity.
- Provides improved habitat for amphibians, such as salamanders and frogs, especially in ponds that do not contain fish.
- Provides shelter for fish and freshwater invertebrates
- Supplies food for aquatic organisms.
- Provides waterfowl and wading birds places to feed and rest.
- Stabilizes shorelines and reduces erosion.
- Minimizes or eliminates chemical runoff, especially when combined with a "buffer zone" in which no chemical is applied.
- Improves water quality as plants take up excess nutrients and produce oxygen to aerate the water.
- Lowers maintenance costs and reduces the need for high-intensity or time-consuming maintenance.
- Reduces equipment wear and tear.
- Reduces the need for gasoline, pesticides, fertilizers, and water.
- Enables staff to concentrate where it really counts - highly visible areas or, for golf courses, the playing surfaces.
- Increase wildlife sightings.
- Adds distinctive contrast and natural beauty to the landscape.
- Provides places for nature study and enjoyment.
