Quaker Earthcare Witness and the Call to Restore Creation

What if the best thing you could do for our mutually beneficial planet started in our own backyard? This Earth Day, Quaker Earthcare Witness invites Friends to take one practical step: restore native habitat where you live, worship, or gather. Dr. Doug Tallamy, founder of Homegrown National Park, reminds us that native plants are not interchangeable with ornamentals. They are the foundation of local ecosystems—supporting the insects that transfer energy up the food chain. Without them, no birds. No butterflies. No healthy soil. The good news? Restoration works fast. On his own former farm, Tallamy recorded over 1,300 moth species and 62 breeding birds returning. Your meetinghouse lawn can become a sanctuary. Your balcony container can host a monarch. Start small. Add your project to the QEW Action Map linked below. Watch life return. Faith and Practice are calling us in for creation.

By Nathan Shroyer for South Jersey Quakers

In a world trembling on the edge of ecological collapse, where the news is often filled with despair, Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) is offering a message that is both ancient and urgently new: We are Nature’s Best Hope.

This Earth Day, QEW is inviting Friends across the country—including right here in South Jersey—to take a practical, spiritual, and revolutionary step. We are asked to stop simply wringing our hands over biodiversity loss and instead put our hands in the soil. Through the restoration of native habitats, we are not just planting gardens; we are mending our role for this Gaia Creation.

Thee Spirit. Can you hear it in the Soil? Life Giving in Simplicity and Community

Our Quaker testimony of Simplicity is often mistaken for mere austerity. Yet, as discussed in Quaker houses for generations, simplicity is not about having less for the sake of emptiness; it is about removing the clutter that distracts us from right relationship with God and each other .

In the context of the 21st century, the greatest distraction may be the “lawn”—a monoculture imported from European estates that demands chemical fertilizers, wastes water, and supports zero wildlife. QEW’s current call to action, inspired by Dr. Doug Tallamy’s recent webinar, reframes Simplicity as a positive act of restoration. Instead of spending weekends mowing a green desert, Friends are invited to simplify their lives by letting the land return to its natural, messy, glorious state.

This act is inherently communal. The testimony of Community extends beyond the meetinghouse walls to include the “community of creation”—the moths, the bees, the birds, and the soil microbes. As one Quaker resource notes, “Friends are indeed called to walk gently on the earth. Wasteful and extravagant consumption is a major cause of destruction of the environment” .

The Cost of War: Is Global Ecosystem Need and Future Attainment Equal or less than The Peace Dividend?

We cannot speak of healing the Earth without naming the sickness that ravages it. While we tend to our backyards, we must look with horror at the battlefields of Ukraine and Gaza, where the environment is the silent victim. The war in Ukraine has released an estimated 230 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent into the atmosphere—the annual pollution of 50 million cars—while destroying forests and fragmenting fragile ecosystems .

Historians have a term for this: Ecocide—the killing of the earth. In places like Palestine, once-arable lands where farmers grew olives and almonds are now cratered and poisoned by military explosives . The cost of war is not just measured in dollars or human lives, but in the contamination of aquifers and the extinction of species.

Yet, in our Quaker vision, any living testimony about the earned opportunity costs of a forthcoming “Peace Dividend” is not merely going to be about money saved; it is life restored. Imagine a world where billions spent on militarism are redirected into what Quaker faith calls the “Right Sharing of World Resources”. If we beat our swords into plowshares—literally—we could fund a global Marshall Plan for a shared planet Earth. We could invest in technology to clean the toxins from Ukrainian soil, reforest the Jordan Valley, and pay the “ecological debt” owed by the industrial north to the global south.

As one analysis of post-war reconstruction suggests, we must move away from “extractive” aid—where a nation’s resources are looted to pay for war debts—and move toward “restorative” justice, where rebuilding focuses on clean soil, fresh water, and resilient communities . This is the Peace Dividend: turning machinery of mass pollution, oppression, cynicism, intolerance, fear and imminent death into the loving emergent infrastructure of regeneration.

Many Faiths, One River: A Pluralistic Approach

QEW is not sectarian; it is rooted in universal truth found across our world’s wisdom traditions. To heal this earth, we must draw from a well of pluralism.

• Biblical Witness: The book of Genesis gives humanity “dominion” over the earth, but as scholars remind us, this is not a license to dominate, but a call to be stewards. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (Genesis 2:15).
• Koran (Qur’an): The Holy Qur’an teaches that there is no creature on earth whose care is not incumbent upon humanity. “It is Allah who created the heavens and earth, who has sent down water from the sky and with it brought forth produce to nourish you…” (Qur’an 14:32-33) .
• Buddhist Path: Buddha taught us the cause of suffering. It is attachment and ignorance. In our ecological context, our attachment to fossil fuels is causing great suffering. A good Buddhist, it is said, plants at least one tree per year, honoring the First Precept of non-harm (Ahimsa) .
• Jain Wisdom: A principle of Ahimsa (non-violence) is taken to a higher degree in Jainism, extending loving kindness to earth, water, fire, air, and all living beings. When we plant native species to feed a moth, we practice radical non-violence aiming to care about the smallest living creatures.

Networks of Hope and New Practice: Beyond Western Capitalism

Quaker Earthcare Witness understands that we cannot shop our way out of ecological collapse. The politics of Western capitalism and militarism economics have failed to address the crisis because they view the earth as a commodity. QEW offers a different path: Radical Hospitality and Equity.

By collaborating with partners like the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) , Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) , Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) , and Right Sharing of World Resources, QEW is part of a small but mighty infrastructure of organizations not beholden to corporate donors. These can be small ‘d’ democracy movers, shakers and the ones who know the coming Peaceable QuaKingdom These diverse F/friends groups operate on conceiving and “prospecting hope”—faith led to change practices. We change our souls, by changing our souls, we change our world.

As one Friend put it: “We are called to be patterns and examples… promoting these truths by being patterned onto by creative truths and their examples”.

Action Items for South Jersey Friends

This Earth Day, QEW asks you to move from concern to action. Here is how you can join the regeneration:

1. Plant Native: Set aside a few hours this weekend to plant native species at your home or meetinghouse. Ditch the invasive ornamentals for oaks, milkweed, and goldenrod.
2. Remove Invasives: Host a “Remove Invasive Species Day” at your Meeting. It is a powerful spiritual practice to literally remove the strangling vines of a broken system.
3. Watch and Learn: Host a Watch Party for Doug Tallamy’s presentation Nature’s Best Hope. Watch the recording here: [Link to QEW Recording].
4. Map Your Ministry: Put your Meeting on the map! Visit the Quaker Earthcare Action Map to see where others are planting. Add your own backyard or meetinghouse project to visualize our collective impact.

Query for Worship

As we sit in the silence, let us hold this query in our quieting hearts:

“In what ways are we preparing for the future Peace Dividend? Are we ready to trade the simplicity we saw in a mowed lawn for the complexity of a thriving ecosystem? How can our Meeting and our community practice ‘Right Sharing’ not just with our money, but with our land?”

The task before us is immense. The spiral of ecosystem collapse is terrifying. But as Dr. Tallamy reminds us, restoration works faster than we think. On his own property, a former farm returned to native plants now hosts 1,300 species of moths and 62 species of breeding birds.

That is a sound of a longed for Resurrection. That is the sound of Peaceable Queen’s QuaKingdom. Let us join Quaker Earthcare Witness. Let’s make it so.

References & Bibliography

1. Quaker Earthcare Witness. “About QEW.” Quakers in the World.
2. Tallamy, Doug. Nature’s Best Hope. (Referenced via QEW Webinar).
3. “Silent victims: Poisoned land, decimated ecosystems.” Times of India. 2025.
4. “The Cost of Aid: Minerals, Ecocide, and the Environmental Politics of Rebuilding Ukraine.” Yale Review of International Studies. 2025.
5. “Right sharing of the world’s resources.” Quaker faith & practice (UK).
6. “Stewardship of Economic Resources.” Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice.
7. Elijah Interfaith Institute. “November Edition: Water.” 2013.
8. “Many faith traditions active in environmental advocacy.” Anglican Journal. 2010.

Media & Contact Package

Key Quaker Organizations (Contact Pages):

• Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW): https://quakerearthcare.org/ | Email: info@quakerearthcare.org | Phone: 510-542-9606
• Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL): www.fcnl.org
• American Friends Service Committee (AFSC): www.afsc.org
• Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO): www.quno.org
• Right Sharing of World Resources: www.rswr.org
• World Gathering of Young Friends (FWCC): www.fwcc.world

Recommended Earth Day Story/Video:

• Watch: “Restoring Biodiversity at Home” (Recording of Doug Tallamy’s webinar for QEW).
• Social Media Text:
  “This Earth Day, South Jersey Friends are choosing hope over despair. We are swapping the green desert of the lawn for the paradise of the native meadow. As the Buddha said, ‘Drop by drop is the water pot filled.’ Join Quaker Earthcare Witness in filling the Earth with life. #QuakerEarthcare #NativePlants #PeaceDividend #RightSharing”

Suggested Queries for Meeting for Worship:

1. Where do we see any “seeds of war” in our current landscaping and/or material consumption habits?
2. How can our testimony of Simplicity guide us as we seek our response to climate collapse?
3. What would it look like for our Meeting to offer “radical hospitality” to the native insects and birds of New Jersey?