Circle Sanctuary's Ecological Work
Circle Sanctuary Nature Preserve is a 200-acre Nature preserve in the driftless bioregion of southwestern Wisconsin. Circle Sanctuary Nature Preserve is located about 27 miles west of Madison, Wisconsin and is approximately three miles from Blue Mound State Park in eastern Iowa County.
Circle Sanctuary Nature Preserve, founded in 1983 by Selena Fox and others, is privately owned and operated by Circle Sanctuary, a non-profit Nature Spirituality resource center and Wiccan church. Circle Sanctuary was founded in 1974, incorporated as a non-profit religious organization in Wisconsin in 1978, and received federal 501(c)(3) non-profit status in 1980. All 200 acres of Circle Sanctuary Nature Preserve received zoning for Circle Sanctuary activities in 1988 and the land serves as headquarters for Circle Sanctuary's multifaceted work, which includes ecospirituality networking, publishing and information dissemination (books, periodicals, recordings, internet); events (festivals, classes, work days, ceremonies); counseling and spiritual healing; multicultural, international, and interfaith dialogue; academic research and archives management; ecospirituality education; historic preservation; and Nature conservation. Circle Sanctuary is one of America's oldest and best known ecospirituality institutions.
The purpose of Circle Sanctuary Nature Preserve is to preserve and sustain ecological diversity and to be a place where humans can deepen their understanding and relationships with the scientific and spiritual dimensions of Nature. Over the past 20 years, hundreds of people from many walks of life, cultures, ethnicities, religions, and philosophies have visited Circle Sanctuary Nature Preserve. They have come not only from the local area, but from throughout Wisconsin, the Midwest, and across the USA, plus a variety of other countries, including England, Scotland, Canada, Mexico, Ecuador, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Japan, India, New Zealand, Tasmania, Papua New Guinea, and Australia.
Circle Sanctuary Nature Preserve includes one of Wisconsin's remaining remnant prairies, plus wetlands, springs, sandstone rock outcroppings, a restored prairie, and more than 130 acres of hardwood forest. Through the land runs a branch of the West Blue Mounds Creek which is part of the Wisconsin River watershed. The preserve has many types of songbirds and other wildlife. It also includes several ancient Native American sites on record with Wisconsin's State Historical Society.
Circle Sanctuary staff and volunteers, which include environmental scientists, have engaged in a variety of Nature preservation and education activities:- Wildlife preservation and study, with special work with songbirds and frogs.
- Forest preservation and management.
- Wetland preservation and restoration.
- Prairie preservation and restoration.
- Removal and control of non-native invasive plant species.
- Cooperation with governmental agencies and environmental groups on addressing ecological problems, including gypsy moth invasion and chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer in this area.
- Interfaith ecospiritual collaboration, such as exchanging prairie seeds with St. Benedict Center, Bethel Horizons, and Sinsinawa Mound prairie projects, and contributing to interfaith ecospirituality events.
- Participation in local & state environmental activities, including Wisconsin's annual crane count and the National Bluebird Association's transcontinental bluebird trail program.
- Contributing environmental knowledge and perspectives in town meetings and citizen group discussions on land use planning. Helping town officials develop its recycling program.
- Speaking at and participation in local, regional, national, and global conferences designed to increase dialogue and cooperation among diverse peoples and organizations for a healthier planet.
- Sponsoring environmental educational events - Nature walks, workshops, & Earth Day Festival.
- Contributing to academic literature, research, and learning experiences in the fields of Psychology, Religious Studies, and Environmental Sciences, including presentations at professional conferences in North America and Europe, guest appearances in classrooms at various universities in the USA and Canada, and providing consultation expertise for students and professors at a variety of institutions around the world.
- Engaging in public ecospirituality education and information dissemination through interviews with local, statewide, regional, national, and global mass media, including television, radio, newspapers, magazines, film, and the internet.