Bike to Work Day

Hey everyone, happy Bike to Work Day! Hope you all enjoyed your ride in, and if that ride took you through a local park or natural area, lucky for you!! Be safe out there.

Shout out to the ever-amazing Green Seattle Partnership restoration project along the Burke Gilman Trail. Keep up the good work!

Happy Mother’s Day!

The Green Cities Network wishes all of the mothers out there a happy Mother’s Day, and encourages everyone to honor your Mother Earth by getting outside on this beautiful weekend and volunteering to help her become even more beautiful. Find opportunities near you to get involved in Seattle, Tacoma, Kirkland, Redmond, and Kent. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Project UP heads to Baltimore

We just heard from Project UP partners ACTrees that the second site has been selected to develop a new urban park, on the heels of their first collaboration last year in Indianapolis. Project UP, a partnership between ACTrees and the Boise ASPEN brand of recycled papers, works to “unlock the potential” of urban places by creating new parks and greenspace.

The new greenspace in Baltimore will be in a small lot that formerly held 12 abandoned row houses. Project UP hopes to revitalize the neighborhood and give the community a positive new public space. Park development is coordinated by Project UP, working alongside local non-profit Parks and People Foundation, human services company Humanim, Inc., and local government agencies.

ACTrees says that last year’s project, “Highland Vicinity Park, at the corner of 29th Street and Capitol Ave. in the Near North part of Indianapolis, is now a green oasis at a busy intersection where a gas station used to stand.” Some nice photos are posted on their website of the construction, which involved over 70 volunteers.

These are just the kind of stories we love to hear about. We’ll keep our ears open for more updates from this great project.

 

Why Trees Matter

Jim Robbins’ recent op-ed piece in the New York Times got a lot of people talking about trees.

The article mentions many of the benefits of trees that we also celebrate here at Green Cities: trees as natural water filters, air filters, shade for the urban heat island, and more. Trees as stress reducers point to a study out of Japan on the practice of “forest bathing” to improve your health. Forest bathing also appeared in an earlier post.

Robbins also talks about the benefits of trees that are only partly-understood, or not understood at all. The complex systems that include trees seem to be constantly revealing more nuances that effect us and the rest of the planet, like the relationship between decomposing tree leaves and ocean plankton.

We have underestimated the importance of trees. . . We take them for granted, but they are a near miracle.

- Jim Robbins

There are so many reasons that trees matter. Thank you to everyone who volunteered this weekend for an Earth Day work party, and we hope you’ll join us again to celebrate and care for trees all year.