The ghosts of Bishop Woods

A beautiful, lifeless Utopia

On this sunny Friday afternoon in late-September, I sit on a perfectly-manicured and pesticide-ridden lawn that feels more like a graveyard (albeit a beautiful one) than a wood. A fair wind blows—not quite howling—but enough to rustle the leaves as if in a faint, distant whisper. I recall, during my first stint here four years ago, the lush green trees and other flora that inhabited this little plot. Those old-growth maples and oaks—which existed here long before Oxford was a town and Miami a university—were allowed free reign over the land. Even the sinister honeysuckle—an invasive tree that strangled the underbrush—were in abundance back then.

There were many reservations about the so-called “restoration” of Bishop Woods, which took place in 2015. Several professors and experts whose job it is to consider local ecology and conservation pushed back against parts of the plan to tame the space. They were concerned with “the large area of grass that would be created puts an unnatural environment in the center of a little island of natural environment.” They were also worried about the size and layout of the paths.