interesting projects by the U.S. Forest Service

Meet Erika Svensen of the U.S. Forest Service and read about a couple of her projects:

SACRED SPACE.
Recently, my colleagues and I received a grant from the TKF Foundation, a private non-profit that funds publicly accessible urban green space. The project, entitled Landscapes of Resilience: Understanding the Creation and Stewardship of Open Spaces Sacred Places, focuses on acute disasters (such as the Joplin tornado and Hurricane Sandy on the east coast) and compares these disturbances with chronic, longer term economic disruption in our communities. We are studying when, where, how and why residents use greening activities as a mechanism for resilience and restoration. You can learn more about this project here: http://civicecology.org/tkf.php for more details. 

URBAN FIELD STATION.
In addition to my current research, I am part of the New York City Urban Field Station. The field station’s mission is to improve the quality of life in urban areas by conducting and supporting research about social-ecological systems and natural resource management. It began as a partnership between the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station and the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation. Here is a link to the NYC Urban Field Station site: http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/nyc/ 

LIVING MEMORIALS.
One of my first research projects with the U.S. Forest Service resulted in a multi-year study to understand the meaning of community-based memorials and acts of environmental stewardship after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Living Memorials Project http://www.livingmemorialsproject.net/ documented and investigated over 700 memorials nationwide, made them accessible in an on-line national registry, and findings were synthesized in articles, presentations and multi-media exhibits. Our research examines the emergence of September 11 memorials as part of a social-ecological process of resilience and the ways in which ordinary space becomes sacred. Our partnership with artists and designers enabled us to produce an exhibit, Land-Markings: 12 Journeys through 9/11 Living Memorials at the National Park Service’s Federal Hall National Memorial on Wall Street. We were honored to receive the 2007 EDRA/Places Award for Living Memorials National Research: 9-11 and the Public Landscape.

Full bio here: http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/people/esvendsen

Placemaking - the value of green urban areas (Ottawa)

The Power of a Small Green Place

- A Case Study of Ottawa's Fletcher Wildlife Garden by Renate Sander-Regier

Abstract: The Power of a Small Green Place is an ethnographic case study among the volunteers and urban wilds of Ottawa’s Fletcher Wildlife Garden (FWG). Through the conceptual lens of the geographical concept of place – with its wide range of physical, relational and deeper meaningful considerations – this urban wildlife habitat project emerged as a place of profound significance. Volunteers working to create and maintain the FWG’s diverse habitats benefit from opportunities to engage in physical outdoor activity, establish social connections, make contact with the natural world, find deep personal satisfaction and meaning, and experience healthier and mutually beneficial relations with nature. This case study fills a knowledge gap in geography regarding the significant relationships that can emerge between people and the land they work with, thereby contributing to geography’s “latest turn earthward” examining practices and relationships of cultivation with the land. The case study also contributes to a growing interdisciplinary dialogue on human-nature relations and their implications in the context of future environmental and societal uncertainties.

The full thesis can be read here:  Ottawa University Thesis: Fletcher Garden, Renate Regier. 


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Speaking about Fletcher Wildlife Garden - there has also been a great recent blog post and video - check it out here on Housecraft.

Urban Forest Map (San Francisco)

The Urban Forest Map is a project in San Francisco, California that allows residents to enter information online by finding a tree on Google Earth, marking it and entering information regarding the street tree.  It's a great way to build an urban tree inventory through volunteer efforts.  This project is supported by governments, non-profits and businesses. It not only helps catalogue (with species, diameter at breast height and other info) the immense urban canopy the city has but it also provides data on the ecological services that the trees provide to the area. Check it out below:

Part of the reason this project was initiated was that canopy cover was extremely low (2.5% in 2008), and this inventory has helped underline this and show where new trees are most needed.  You can see all the trees in google map in either a street view or satellite view.  Pretty impressive!

Unique ecosystem in Ottawa

Did you know that Ottawa has a sand dune ecosystem (that has existed over 10,000 years)? Did you know that it is shrinking every year? Ottawa could lose this sand dune for good within 10 - 15 years.

But there is good news:

A restoration effort is being carried out by Biodiversity Conservancy in collaboration with the National Capital Commission and funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation to restore the remaining part of the SSD system to a sustainable level. The restoration includes making a scientific assessment of orgsanisms living in SSD, removing weeds, selected trees, accumulated organic material, and cleaning the sand in the core of the remaining dune to stabilize the system. A corridor of woodland will be maintained around the perimeter of the SSD to minimize erosion by wind and to contain the sand in the dune.

For more information on this important biodiversity project go to the Biodiversity Conservancy website. They also have a Biodiversity Journal which they publish four times a year.

Photo Credit: Steph Willems

Urban Bird Counts (Ottawa)

Just found out about the Ottawa Bird Breeding Count! It is headed up by the Geomatics and Landscape Ecology Research Laboratory at Carleton University: "A Volunteer Based, Scientifically Rigorous Survey of Birds in an Expanding City".

You can find out more about the Count and the GLEL at the website. They have a course for volunteers to learn bird songs. Listen to CBC radio interviews about the OBBC and about the Bird Song - Point Count Course.

bioengineering for stream restoration

From the R.V.C.A.:

Bioengineering is erosion control using live cuttings of willows and dogwoods to help stabilize banks and revegetate shorelines in areas where tree planting will wash out. It is an alternative to using harder structures, such as rip rap, gabion baskets, armourstone, etc. Layers of soil are wrapped in coconut fiber to hold them into the bank. Live cuttings of willows and dogwoods are used to create a fascine (tubular structure) placed along the water line, and live cuttings are then placed between the layers of wrapped soil. Shrubs are then introduced at the top of slope.

Link to Ontario Streams for a more detailed description of fascines.

Here is a link to a report on a bioengineering project for Graham Creek in Ottawa.

Read this 2011 post about riparian buffers and the three levels of stream restoration.

Image from Charlotte-Mecklenburg website.

volunteer!

Get involved in learning about and protecting our local biodiversity with:

- Ottawa Field Naturalists’ Club (including Fletcher Wildlife Garden)

- Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS)

- Friends of the Jock River

- Greenspace Alliance of Canada’s Capital

- Canadian Wildlife Federation (Backyard Habitat Program)

- Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre

- Ottawa Stewardship Council (cool turtle nesting project)

-  Real Action in Lanark

- Friends of Petrie Island