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Loftness Adds Lightweight Mulching Head For Compact Excavators
Jessica Schwartz
NYC’s Ghost Forest Speaks To Ecosystem Restoration
There’s just one month left to view a towering grove of spectral cedar trees in New York City’s Madison Square Park, whose bare trunks and spindly branches speak not only to the Halloween season but to the ravaging effects of climate change on woodlands. Ghost Forest, an art installation by Maya Lin derives its name from the eponymous natural phenomenon: vast tracts of forestland that have died off due to extreme weather events as well as sea-level rise and saltwater infiltration. To create the installation, Lin worked with the Madison Square Park Conservancy to source dead trees from a restoration project in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, a vulnerable site that has suffered severe deprivation. Atlantic white cedars, which were once plentiful on the East Coast, have dwindled to a population below 50,000 acres due to past logging practices as well as threats posed from climate change. The 49 cedar trees installed in the park were all slated to be cleared as part of regeneration efforts. In the park, visitors can wander through the trees, which are interspersed in a dense cluster and stand 40′ to 45′ high. The installation brings the dire reality of dead woodlands to an urban audience and encourages a consideration of nature-based practices that can protect and restore the ecosystem. According to the Conservancy, here are two things we can learn from the unique regional ecosystem in the Pine Barrens: Overdevelopment of land negatively impacts forests. Pine Barrens are ecosystems composed of stands of ...
Ten New ASLA Projects Represent Climate Resilient Landscape Design
It’s Earth Day! And for inspiration, here’s 10 new projects that were recently added to the Smart Policies for a Changing Climate Online Exhibition from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). The exhibit demonstrates smart landscape design solutions to climate impacts, such as flooding, extreme heat, drought, and sea level rise and exemplifies best practice approaches in an era of climate change. The projects include a mix of landscape-based and nature-based solutions across the U.S., which range in scale from residential and school landscapes to masterplans for entire cities and counties. There is also a focus on projects that address climate injustices and meet the needs of historically-marginalized and underserved communities. “These projects clearly show how landscape architects can help all kinds of communities reduce their risk to increasingly severe climate impacts. Landscape architects design with nature, which leads to more resilient solutions that also improve community health, safety, and well-being over the long-term,” said Torey Carter-Conneen, ASLA CEO. With these 10 new projects, which were selected with ASLA’s Climate Action Committee, there are now a total of 30 projects featured in the online exhibition, which opened in 2019. Each project was selected to illustrate policy recommendations outlined in the 2017 report produced by ASLA’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Climate Change & Resilience. The new projects were submitted by ASLA members through an open call released in 2019. In partnership with the ASLA Climate Action Committee, projects were selected to represent a range of U.S. regions, scales (from ...
