We need support NOW! City Council is gathering bids and attempting to negotiate easements for the Altis property. It's Our Wild Nature needs help financially and spiritually to save this urban wilderness gem in the heart of Columbia MO. You can donate on this website or on facebook, or give Sutu cash or checks. She is willing to gamble her life's savings to benefit the people who love nature. We are not asking you to do that. But $5, $10, $100, or $10,000 all makes a difference. If you are interested in why we need this please call Sutu at 573 449-2955, or send us a message at [email protected], or on facebook. The only way to save the planet is one acre at a time and this is 35 acres that has been enriching our lives for eons.

Friends WE NEED YOU NOW!!!!!!!!!!  CRITICAL REQUEST
City Council will vote Monday to hire engineers to study three plans to cut bike roads through our sacred forest  We have offered a compromise but WE NEED YOU to make it happen. Our city council representative has agreed to add an OPTION 4 to the resolution. She will pull resolution R70-14 from the Consent Agenda and ask the other council members to agree to add OPTION 4 to the engineering study contract.

Here is a link showing the 3 disastrous bike road plans that would dissect the property...http://www.gocolumbiamo.com/Council/Commissions/downloadfile.php?id=13339

We have suggested Option 4 which would improve the safety of the Pedway from OLD HWY 63 to ASHLAND RD along STADIUM BLVD. MODOT will be redoing the intersection soon so the 2 projects could easily be combined.

This would keep the construction destruction out of the 35 acre woods to give us more time to save it and offer bikers and pedestrians a safer and much easier way on more level terrain to get from the Shepard area to campus. And possibly save money to improve pedways in other parts of town!

Please email or leave messages to your Council person now and copy to the rest of the Council members AS SOON AS POSSIBLE BEFORE MONDAY!

http://www.gocolumbiamo.com/Council/Commissions/downloadfile.php?id=13339

Council emails: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

We had a very awesome experience at our Board Meeting last night. A young man about middle school age visited and announced he opened an Etsy shop to help raise funds to save what he calls the "sacred" forest and he will donate at least 25% of his profits to us. I think we all wiped a tear all at once. That is how special this forest is. He gave us the first $20 he raised! Here is a quote from his shop StarCatWorkshop...

"Elijah is making wire sculptures and wire-wrapped crystal pendants. The craftsmanship of these pieces is truly unique and high in positive energy. 25% of sales will go to the organization "It's Our Wild Nature" which is dedicated to saving an undeveloped area of the Hinkson Creek Valley. For more information visit http://www.itsourwildnature.com/."

http://www.etsy.com/shop/StarCatWorkshop#

The city of Columbia will host a ward check-in event for Sixth Ward residents on Wednesday January 22, 2014.

The meeting, which is scheduled for 7 to 9 p.m. at Shepard Boulevard Elementary School, 2616 Shepard Blvd., allows residents to get updates on projects in their area and speak to city staff and their council member.

The ward check-in meetings are held bi-annually for each ward.

Please let Barbara Hoppe know that the 35 acre Altis property on the Hinkson Creek needs to be saved as a nature sanctuary. It is a gem in the heart of the city for citizens and wildllife to rejuvenate as well as an invaluable wetland processing runoff and purifying our urban air pollution. There are plans to develop this property as student housing or to cut a concrete bike road through the heart of the property(see photo above). If either of these plans happen the character of the area as we have known it for 50 years will be lost forever. The City Council needs to know how important this area is "as is"(see bottom photo).

Saturday I witnessed a beautiful magical collaborative effort on the banks of the Hinkson Creek. I think the mist made it better. People were there because they wanted to be...not because it was a great day to be outside.

 

Imagine with us.

Imagine 35 acres of beautiful primitive land in the heart of a city. Imagine escaping the pavement and stoplights, cars and crowds, finding respite in a peaceful forest teeming with wildlife. Imagine the Hinkson Valley Nature Sanctuary with us. The organization It's Our Wild Nature is dedicated to conserving 35 gorgeous, precious wild acres in the heart of Columbia.

A vital part of living is connecting with the Earth. By conserving this land, we will provide a unique and wonderful space in which people will be immersed in a primitive natural environment. Walking on a natural-grass path, they will connect with the energy of Earth. At the same time, we will conserve a piece of land that has been largely untouched for decades and help keep an important impaired watershed from being further polluted by development. We want to save the forest. Our spirits need these places.

"Each town should have … a primitive forest … where a stick should never be cut for fuel, a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation," Henry David Thoreau wrote in an Oct. 15, 1859 journal entry.

Writing in his classic book, "Walden," about the ties between people and nature, he says, "Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it." And, he adds, "We need the tonic of wildness."

Wouldn't you like to take your kids to a wild space where nature will let them find their inner creature? A fairy forest of May apples, and wolf trees where bats roost? A wildflower meadow where turtles sun, and deer run, and butterflies meander? It's our wild nature. There, bare feet connect with the energy of Mother Earth on paths of moss and grass. We know where it is, and we want to save it for all.

Forty years ago, as students overwhelmed with the concrete and constant churning of humanity on campus, we found this soothing, shady, quiet, peaceful sanctuary with only the sounds of nature. Thirty-five years later we realized this common bond and have since encountered hundreds of others who have found this enchanted haven to soothe their souls.

This land is a sanctuary in the heart of the city perfect for education, conservation and escaping the harshness, pace and noise of our paved environment. It is a place that buffers noise, filters pollution, absorbs floodwaters and rejuvenates people and nature.

It's Our Wild Nature is a group of citizens committed to preserving the vision of Thoreau by facilitating the transfer of ownership and protection of this land to a trust to foster an ethic of environmental stewardship and social responsibility to be used for education, conservation and meditation. This land is for sale and must be protected from housing or other development. Why does every place on Earth have to be developed? There needs to be places for turtles and birds and foxes and bats and wanderers and ponderers. A place where the road ends and you get off your bikes and out of your cars. A place to breathe and feel!

Our dream is to create the Hinkson Valley Nature Sanctuary and Outdoor Classroom to educate and inspire.

From 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday at 627 Bluff Dale Drive, on the bank of the Hinkson Creek, It's Our Wild Nature will present "A Call for the Wild, a Celebration of Columbia's Wild Spaces," a musical by Forté & Roe, along with guests Bill Clark, Jeff Barrow, Debbie D'Agostino and Myron Neuffer, complete with a wild-animal call contest (rain date is May 4.)

Bring a blanket or chair and join us to make the Hinkson Valley Nature Sanctuary and Outdoor Classroom happen now and for future generations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exciting news!!! Please check the event page. Forté & Roe are creating a brand new original musical to be premiered on the banks of the Hinkson Creek. You will not want to miss this!