NATURAL RESULTS

ing as well. In 2010 the Fairmount Park system merged with the City’s Recreation Department, creating the current Parks & Recreation Department. The environmental education and volunteer stewardship functions of NLREEP were split off under the new bureaucracy, leaving six full-time staff working on natural lands restoration.

The reduced unit has further atrophied in recent years, with positions such as the operations manager going unfilled after retirements. According to the City’s 2023 Tree Plan, “currently, there are only three full-time Philadelphia Parks & Recreation staff members and two full-time Fairmount Park Conservancy staff members in the Natural Lands team responsible for managing and protecting 5,600 acres of forest, meadows, and streams.”

The unit could be poised for a turnaround. Cherelle Parker, the Democratic candidate for mayor, has called for doubling Parks & Recreation’s operations budget.

The Tree Plan calls for eight additional staff positions to tend the urban wilds, recognizing their importance in the health of the city. (Grid reached out to Parks & Recreation for an update on natural lands staffing but had not heard back as of press time.)

“That’s where the work happens. The work of natural resources happens in the forest,” Blaustein says. “Air is cleaned, water is cleaned. It doesn’t happen in mowed lawn. We need big mature trees, deep roots and soil.”

“They’re sort of the lungs of the city, and they are very important around climate change,” says Michael DiBerardinis, who headed the William Penn Foundation from 2000 to 2002 and with the City oversaw the park system merger in 2010. “They clean the air and provide temperature relief during the increasingly hot summers we’re having. They provide tens of thousands of people with recreational activities adjacent to their neighborhood[s] … They really provide a place for people to enjoy nature beyond their important environmental features.” ✿

1

Three Springs Hollow

The forest canopy soars above Three Springs Hollow on the north side of Pennypack Creek, between Krewstown Road and Bustleton Avenue, but by the early 2010s the forest managers realized that new trees weren’t growing up to replace their elders. After erecting a fence to keep deer (like this young buck found outside) from eating seedlings didn’t do the trick, the unit initiated tree plantings to see what would work to kickstart forest regeneration. The forest in the hollow “was really, really nice to begin with, so we fenced it in, and have since been planting,” says Tom Dougherty, formerly of Parks & Rec. The plantings include hybrid American chestnut trees, a species that once formed a major portion of the region’s hardwood forests but that was wiped out by chestnut blight in the early 1900s. 2 from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and other sources they were able to cut the trees back around the edges and re-seed the meadow with native grasses and wildflowers.

3

Haddington Woods

In Haddington Woods, a section of Cobbs Creek Park north of Market Street in West Philadelphia, a deer-proof fence protects what could be the future of urban forestry in Philadelphia. As global warming cranks up the temperature in city forests, some snow-loving species of trees, such as sugar maples, will likely disappear. Their replacements might currently grow to the south, where forests have evolved with the climate that awaits Philadelphia. To get ready, City foresters have planted southern species such as loblolly pines in Haddington Woods.

4 Greenland Nursery

Houston Meadow

Next to the Andorra neighborhood of Northwest Philadelphia 30 acres of meadow spread across the hillsides at the edge of the Wissahickon Valley. After hundreds of years as open agricultural fields and pastures, the land had grown in with trees as part of the park system. Keith Russell, program manager for urban conservation with Audubon MidAtlantic, had birded in the meadows in his youth and had watched as they dwindled and grasslands bird species disappeared.

In 2007 Russell and the Natural Lands team’s Tom Witmer hatched a plan to restore the meadow, and with funding

The Greenland Nursery in Fairmount Park West dates back to the late 1800s but launched in its current form in 2009. The nursery staff harvests seeds and cuttings from native plants growing in the park system and uses them to generate more plants for ecological restoration work. “We were not seeing a lot of natural regeneration in the forest, so we’ve had to get involved,” says Max Blaustein, the nursery’s director, quoted in Grid #122 (July 2019).

5 FDR Park South Meadow

Meadow Lake in FDR Park is a great spot for watching winter waterfowl, but up until the early 2000s, the southern portion of Meadow Lake was “a broken-down concrete swimming pool,” says Dougherty. That pool had been built on top of what had originally been part of the lake. “The freshwater lake had been reshaped, filled and armored to facilitate its conversion to a swimming pool,” according to a project summary by Biohabitats, the engineering firm hired to restore it. With the pool in disrepair, NLREEP used a grant from the state’s Growing Greener program to pay for Biohabitats to rip out the concrete (which was used to elevate chronically soggy baseball fields nearby), restore the lake with native vegetation and install a walkway with signage, allowing park visitors to access the site.

Omar Buenaventura

Woodworker & Colloborative Artist

Philadelphia-based artist inspired by Filipinx tradition and reclaimed materials.

@bahay215

Tell Us About Your Story

I am a self-taught Filipino-American installation artist living in Lenapehoking. In 2020, my partner Nicky Uy and I formed Bahay215 , an ongoing art collaboration inspired by Filipinx tradition, diaspora, community, and nature. Motivated by the local environment as well as my childhood experiences growing up in the Philippines, my work commonly implements reclaimed wood and locally grown bamboo.

WHAT INSPIRES YOU & WHAT’S NEXT?

I’m inspired by my memories of growing up in the Philippines and I try to create familiar pieces that would invoke longing for home and the feeling of belonging for Filipinos who want to reconnect and for folks who want to get to know the beauty of our culture. That inspiration comes easy, and the hunt for materials to reclaim is exciting. It’s the space to keep bulk items without becoming a hoarder that is the most difficult part. My family is what really inspires me—I believe in honoring the past through art and practice, and I believe my work is an act of resistance. My goal is to never stop learning and to keep on improving with my techniques. I intend to learn more about CNC and computer design when the opportunity comes in the future.

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