There are many places available in Dane County to build new houses. The Arboretum shouldn’t be one of them.
The University of Wisconsin Arboretum is a premier research and teaching facility, unique in the nation, and a source of community pride. The Arboretum also is ecologically fragile, under constant challenge from human traffic and pollution. If we want the Arboretum to serve the role it does today for future generations, then protecting it to the fullest extent possible against present and future manmade intrusions is essential.
(Ron Kalil is a professor in the UW-Madison Medical School and a longtime resident in the Arboretum.)