All right, my name is Ryan Myers Johnson. I'm the executive director of sidewalk Detroit and I'm happy to welcome you to our session. Today we're talking about managing natural resources in different parts. So further ado, I'm going to hand it over to Sally.
So, welcome to our session on managing natural resources and contract products. Really, really excited to be here today. I am Sally Petrella, I am the president of the Friends of rich Park, I got involved with the stripe products. Quite a few years ago, I moved back to the city in 1987 into the warrendale neighborhood discover this gorgeous, beautiful car called Rouge park when I went to get my master's degree studying prairies and such and then came to work for friends of the Rouge river organization. And they were doing a project to establish tallgrass prairie in Chicago being sucked into it. And I've been involved ever since helped to start with friends of Rouge Park. So today, we are going to try to help you to understand the value of natural areas and give you a little of advice. And what we've learned through the years in natural areas management in the hopes that you have a part that you love that has natural areas that you'd like to preserve, restore, and protect. So let's see. I'm sorry, I'm really nervous. That I have some notes here. Yeah. Okay. You see that screen? Okay. I know it's kind of small. Anyway, according to the Trust for Public Land, the city of Detroit has 378 parks. I know they told us they've already listened to my sources trust the public land, covering 6% of land and a little little over 50,000 acres. When you compare Detroit to other large urban cities, we score 60 And that score is made up of five different factors. The City of Detroit actually does pretty well on equity, believe it or not, accessibility, you can walk through a park pretty easily. And amenities actually have a lot of basketball courts, and amenities. But where we are lacking is investment in parks, the city of Detroit invests less in the parks than these other major cities for our some of our biggest reasons. And then the last thing is that we have less acreage, the average Park has 15% of its land devoted to parks, we have 6% and also our parks are quite a bit smaller. So we need more parks, we need more large parks.
And so we'll see that okay. So so I can see it. Yeah, so I can see my slides.
Can you guys hear me? Okay. Great. So what are natural areas, you know, our parks, our green spaces, but there's also a lot of natural areas in our parks, the forests, the prairies, the wetlands, the waterways. Those are really critical parts of our parks. But just stepping back for a minute, we here are sitting on borrowed land from the indigenous people from the Anishinabe nation, the three tribes and parks offer us the opportunity to help to deal with the relationship and and all the baggage that goes on with them. And they give us an opportunity to develop those relationships heal those relationships. So parks are great spaces to protect our history, our land, or water or soil, that our hearts also are really important for keeping us healthy in terms of mitigating climate change. You know, think about it, it's a it's a 90 degree, August day and you walk around in the city and walk into the forest, immediate drop in temperature as well as natural areas because of those trees. Parks are natural areas to help to absorb stormwater to help protect from flooding, they play all of these roles. And then secondly, we talked a bit about mental health earlier today. They are really important spaces for our mental health. In Japan by practicing all forest bathing, whilst on a couple of hours and just open your mind to the natural world because our minds are so close to the natural world these days, the average American spends 93% of their time indoors, we need these parks for our own sanity. during COVID. I don't know your park, but people were all over our nature trails in which we really need our products. And then lastly, it's our youth who are going to keep this whole thing going. And our parks offer accessible opportunities for youth to immerse themselves in nature. So natural resource management is, you know, just referring to how we monitor and take care of our parks. Now, you may have a lot of beautiful natural areas and your parks, but they have all been altered. They've been farmed, drain filled, trash dumped there. And now we have this huge problem with invasive species. So they need a lot of care in Rouge Parks case, you know, it was it was purchased from 25 Farms. So we have that whole legacy. So we need we have a lot more to do to take care of these natural areas. Most of our cities actually don't really know how to take care of natural areas, but they're getting better. And the good news is that the city of Detroit has made a commitment to taking care of natural areas. Now that was nice timing. But Jeff Klein just walked back out in from the city. And he and Kate who's Kate there in the back both work for the City to develop natural areas management plans for our cities. I mean for I'm sorry for Detroit parks. So how many of you are involved in managing natural areas in your park? Wow, okay, well, I'm hoping that by the time you leave, we converted all. So what can you do? I mean, the very first thing is just go out to your park and observe and see what's out there take inventories. If you don't know what you're looking at. There are a lot of locals that will come and do a tree walk for you or the Michigan butterfly association will come out and identify your butterflies. There's a lot of resources out there. So get to know your park, monitor your park. Once you start doing that, you're going to notice that you've got some weird plants out there that maybe shouldn't be there. And the classic one is garlic mustard. It's a plant that carpets, the forest floor in the springtime and crowd zone was Trilliums and those, native flowers. And it's a really easy thing to do to just have volunteers go out and spread and pull. It doesn't take any equipment just about to put them in. You can build nature trails, you can plant trees. One of the really surprising things for us is that we got some funding to improve the trail. It was a social trail, and I was going there, but we laid it out. We put interpretive signage, and then we put a bench and a kiosk. And I don't know what happened. Every time I go by, there's somebody parked there hiking the trail. It wasn't that the trail wasn't there. It just was people didn't know about it. And by doing those things to invite people into nature, it goes a long way towards towards improving things. We the day that we did the trail opening, we invited the school in the park, every single class from that school came out and did a scavenger hunt on the trail. other things you can do, you know, install rain garden, restore habitat, and you can go to the next slide. So just a little bit about my own experience in Rouge Park and some lessons learned with us managing natural areas. In 1999, there was a forester in Rouge Park and he got really tired of mowing so much of the park. Now it's great to mow the recreational areas, but these were just fast areas nobody was using for sports or anything, and he also saw that that would be a great opportunity to create more wildlife habitat. He also was working with some UofM botanist who were finding some rare plants out there. So a few years later, the city got a grant actually from the Rouge project to improve water quality by planting a tall grass prairie. This is a type of habitat we used to have all over Southeast Michigan, of course it all have mowed down because it's great agricultural habitat. But it's something that's that we're in need of more restoration of so they got a grant from the EPA to restore 17 acres in Rouge Park and then our sister park Eliza Howell Park. it was a city initiative and neighbor people live along the park and almost neighbors were very supportive of this project. So establishing a priority is not as easy as you might think. We hired the Esther Burwell from the Michigan wild flower farm. She's up in a picture there standing there about two years down the line. She treated all the grass with round up. And then we planted, she seeded it. And as she had a contract over the years, to mow it, because it will turn to woody and turn to forest if it wasn't maintained with fire and people got really interested in the project and National Wildlife Federation came out, friends of the rouge, lots of people got really interested. The picture in the lower part is five years down the line, it took five years to establish a really good looking prairie. That was a great story. And then a few years down the line, the city administration changed. And the director of parks didn't like the look of the prairie and decided to mow the whole thing down. So we were suddenly laying down in front of lawn mowers. we decided to do some things to make it look better because one of the problems is that it looked messy. We have this long history of not knowing our vacant lots people thought it was messy. So we got the city to mow the edges to make it look very clean. And then we work with a local school to design some signs that may look intentional. So these are just kind of temporary signs, you know, as brownies come out and clean up and install those signs. Now people knew this is an area that's supposed to be a little bit messy, it's habitat. And it also guided the mower so that they knew where to mow. Eventually we improved those signs. And then the second thing is you want to make it look intentional. But a tall grass prairie is a fantastic thing. These some of these tall grasses, grasses will grow six feet tall. And to keep out there walking in them is just incredible experience. And so we needed to mow a trail, of course the city didn't want to do it. So we're gonna have a lot more for the Buffalo Soldiers in the park. And there's my husband, he's here today, on the mower, we motor out there trails and now since then the city has been maintaining the trail, they just didn't really know where to put it. And then we also got the local Southeast Michigan butterfly association to do butterfly walks for us. And I'm doing that every year we'll have 60 people come out and see all butterflies in the trails.
Um, primaries, like I said, need to be maintained by fire. And in 2012. We actually got a grant to do some burns in Rouge and Elixa Howell park. It was a scary time because we're still coming out of devils nights fires and people are going how can you actually set it on fire. We had to hire a contractor to do that I do a lot of education. They work with the fire chief, we've actually done some sinse and fire chief still has to go I don't like the idea of storing fire. But anyway, we did it's made a big difference. And that's a big turnout and Eisenhower park with some of our students from school planting seeds to restore those areas. And then it's also a great opportunity for workgroups to come out with that hundreds and hundreds of people come out to take care of the invasive species. I know I can give a whole primer on invasive species. But here's the big ones. Garlic Mustard I mentioned earlier as well as the main herb that comes up in the spring with a little white flour, the woody ones that are worse so buckthorn is a woody plan. If you if you look at any forest, these days, they are filling in with these things we used to have open for us now that filled with either buckthorn or honeysuckle. And Tony, I'll tell you about those in a bit. And then we just few years ago, we got the score of a one called porcelain Berry. It's looks like grapevine, but it's got three parts to its leaf. And it has a beautiful Berry, but it will carpet, everything like kudzu, so we're trying to figure out how to do that and not use herbicides. And Antonio has come up with some good wasys. Keep going. So I wish the fight was just against invasive species. But hedidn't mention this in the presentation. But in 2006 The Kilpatrick administration put up 115 acres of Rouge park for sale, including the prairie including the aero modelers field, including the mayor's father and put in a proposal to put an exclusive Golf Resort in the clubhouse. We couldn't go to the one of the areas we went to bat with the far west Detroit City Association, fought it vehemently people from inside the city were egging us on and we got that shut down. Preserve the park. As I mentioned, we have laid down in front of one more surface of the prairie. We also work with the Detroit water and sewage department. But the problem with Parks is that developers and others look at green space and they salivate because they put it in development and we're constantly fighting against them. The Water Department is a little bit like that, too. They want to use the park to put their sewer projects. And they do that. But we've had some terrible experiences with them, you know, planning a whole tunnel project, destroying a big portion of the park, and then canceling it and then leaving our park fill of rumble, at which point bringing in Detroit planted trees, and of course all the trees died. So since then, we've been keeping DWSDs feet to the fire. And sure you can do a project to improve water quality, but don't hurt our park. And we've just learned from them, they took down 44 trees for their current project, we're going to get them to restore that and work with us to make sure that these things become ammenities. And then last but not least, I'm talking about trees when for the Rouge park is the recipient of a $20 million new recreation center thanks to Tom Morris and pistons Foundation, and we are so excited about it. But unfortunately, in September, we learned that the footprint of this recreation center will mean the loss of 25 100 year old oak trees that are some of the first plantings for the park. So we've been working with the city to see if this can get moved. I'm surprised the city didn't have a little more communication with us because, of course, we would be upset about 25 huge old trees. So we're working with them to minimize the number of trees and to get five trees planted for every one of those trees. If you're going to do any sort of natural areas management partnerships are key. We've had groups from Americorp, they send 300 volunteers out to the park every year. Rocket constantly send volunteers working with Antonio this year gm, there and then in terms of interpretation, there's a lot of Michigan botanical society will come out to your park. Detroit Audubon is now doing walks out of the park to help you with the birds. Wonderful bit of history is and we discovered that by our trails actually had a plaque placed to commemorate Etta s. Wilson, who was a Native American ornithologist who did a lot did a lot of burning in the park and reserving for the park. And the Daughters of the American Revolution placed a plaque in the park to commemorate her in 1930. 1950s got stolen. So just a couple of years ago we replaced that plaque with Daughters of the American Revolution actually came out and we re dedicated a native after her native American name and my Indian family have lost sight of him American elder just a couple other things. Detroit's first female Eagle Scout, Alyssa Castaneda, did her project in rouge Park planted 12 trees in the park so I'm really happy to have a female Eagle Scout used to just be boys. And then last but not least, we partnered with the US Forest Service which is part of why we got so cost year funding to hire Antonio no take not too long. So just you know kind of To summarize, you know, critical things you need to do is develop partnerships. Make your project look intentional with signage, we have some good skilled kiosks involve the public engage local residences, the Student Conservation Association when they help to build a stone bridge trail. And then lastly, because that natural areas have no protection, and you will have to become advocates and advocates. So I think it looks like okay, Antonio has been doing Smart Switch
Thanks, Sally. O G in the park game. Excuse my attire. I consider myself an urban hebob almost like a Korean word for like hillbilly. I was hunting this morning. Hence the boots. I forgot to bring my shoes. Yeah, with the outfit when I started to look like I manage natural areas. Yeah, so the challenge of managing invasive species and managing natural areas is that there isn't enough money to fund I mean, there's so much work to do. If you go into any forest right now. And you see there's an under canopy of green. Those are all invasive species. The every single one, make one it's like one of those things like if you become an expert in something, it kind of ruins it for you. You know, and I can't walk through a park that is like, No, this is like a you know, really is bad. So I'm excited about the work. And I've been trying to devise gimmicks. I'm trying to find ways to bring people in and to engage them so that they participate in stewarding public lands and Parks. And this is two examples. One is this honey suckle happy hour. So we do is buy a little bit of alcohol, and it just invite people to come out and enjoy the adults just enjoy a little drink and work really hard on managing invasive species. is a benefit, people need to learn how to identify and invasive species, and get to work with their body. And I'm telling you, every single person who comes out and participates in one of these feels incredibly like connecting to the land really grateful. And you learn and grow. And it's it's only cool wrapping up this sort of work. So definitely come out and check this out. Another one is called the buckthorn bonfire. So this kind of has been moving into performance, we've been using fire as a way to attract people to come in engage in invasive species management. And that's been a super successful series of events. I think we've had like, maybe like 120 volunteers come out in the last since July since I've been working there. And I think this is a really important model, we would really love to work with the Detroit parks coalition and other organizations like green living sciences, who's apparently doing some natural areas management work to try and engage some of these public spaces more because I look at Palmer woods, it's the same thing. Totally invest, like invaded by invasive species all along the edges. It just like there's a lot of negative outcomes. In our short time we've been to so I don't have my pesticide applicator license yet. So we haven't been working with pesticides. Generally, we try not to we try and do it in a natural way. So it's typically you see all the way on the left, like we did in the past one of using a lot of clippers to just like cut, cut the trim the bushes, but that leaves the roots in the ground and leaves the plants intact. That doesn't mean like you don't do well. So then we upgraded it to a couple of different tools. One is a pitchfork that one broke. And you see she's laughing and kind of holding it up because it was another tool we tried was a honey suckle hopper which works pretty good. But it's it's not. It's doesn't have like a gumption you needed tools. But we found a lot of success with is a broad fork, which is organic farming implement its the one that was hoping like this. And also pick axes, pick axes are also really helpful for small ones. And this is the best tool you see as at our one another volunteer on the right holding it all the way on the right. This is called the pole, the pole bear. It's amusing is the best tool ever. Just live up put in there. If you're trying to manage invasive species, this is what it's made out of a Canadian company. It's kind of a wrench on the bottom of it. It gives you incredible leverage that you can just like pull a lot of small trees right off the ground. So it's really cool. Yeah, and I think like why do we one of the things for me that's really important as somebody who's got Indigenous ancestry. And I work a lot with indigenous peoples like why do we do this? You know, and I for me, I like to think beyond nap like national resources. I like to think of like, right relationships with nature. And I think like what if you were to look to right relationships with nature, indigenous peoples steward, like 20% of the world's land and has an 80% of the world's biodiversity. And it's about like that right relationship and a Sugarbush Project is something that is in line with that sort of like worldview. We started five years ago, and we tap native, we tap trees in the park and make maple syrup and spend a lot of time out there watching the season change and I urge you guys to find the maple near you tap it
so as I mentioned before, Ryan Myers-Johnson, Executive Director of sandbox Detroit, and we have stored Eliza Hall Park. I'm not going to talk too long because we're also going to hear from Nicky my colleague and then talk to you about your questions about natural areas management. But as Sally said, Eliza Hall Park is kind of a sister park to Rouge Park. How many of you have been there by show of hands oh my Yes. Okay. This is good. This is good. We've I've been in some rooms where you are like what? Okay, so anyway, Eliza Hall Park. A little snapshot is 250 Acres is Detroit's fourth largest park. The Rouge river runs through it. It's in bright more on the very edge of the city of Detroit at telegraph, so come check us out to have been close for a while due to some road construction. So if you have been to eliza howell you know about the road smooth sailing a little bit now. So there's some issues there but still come on through. Anyway, I will tell you a little bit about the natural areas management that we've been doing there. So just sort of picking up the mantle from the friends of Eliza Howell park that form to save the park and I think about 2012 As you learned earlier, a lot of the parks were getting sold off and eliza howell Park was going to be sold for private development. So the Friends of Eliza howell formed to save it. And so they organized around that and then I was a resident of Brightmore where living in right more people came together to just really saved this park. And so since then, sidewalk Detroit has been providing programming health and wellness, but mostly focusing on along with the program, natural management, so or anybody who's out there, they are not a naturalist by training or about it. You are not alone. My training is actually in dance and film. I'm an artist. And my perspective was I don't want to see art in the park. That's how about you do sculpture. And through those conversations with residents, I've learned that people were really interested in other things like road repair, bathrooms, flooding and protecting this natural oasis that is Eliza Howell Park. So we received funding to work with experts on how do we do this. And then also join Detroit parks coalition started working with Sally but learn how to do the work. And so in 2020, via funding from Kresge Foundation, and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, we engaged on a 12 acre project of habitat protection restoration. So as you can see, before upgrading to the park was just mow the lawn. And so when you have 100 acres or so of just grass, that's quite high, you know, four times of polling enough is not enough. That is looked at as a flight by some people and contributed to some of the residents not really wanting to engage in Eliza Howell Park. And so you're looking at that after what that is, is a vernal pond what you can't see a decade the before is that if you walked through this, it was kind of a like, kind of mess. Oh, that's that's another picture of what it looked like this was actually a stroke, what wanted to be a natural vernal pond, where you had frogs, toads trying to create habitat areas here. But getting sort of, you can see sort of like tracks where people were just driving across, you know, people were taking the four wheelers, their trucks, dogs, it was just people are running free to cross. And so we worked to plant native species to do remediation, but also to create this board walk in some and part of the nature trail. So as Sally mentioned, part of natural areas is thinking about how are people going to integrate and enjoy this. And so access, and I guess an equitable access to this part of the park was important to us so that you didn't feel like you had to sort of slash do. So those are just some stats about some of the work that we've done. Oh, and this is just some more pictures of the restored Meadows what it looked like. And this is a very young restoration project. So we're just now in year four. And there's a lot of work that we still have to do in terms of management plantings, hopefully, we can be working with the city to do those control events as we as we need to. And then there's quite a lot more acreage in the park that we still need to think about. Right now. We're working on some stormwater management plans, as well. And I want to say I would be remiss if I didn't mention the meadow, you will notice it says former butterfly meadow because part of the thing that you need to do when you're working on these natural areas is hold space and protect it. We did our best but during some of the construction, this meadow that many people invested 20 years of investment in was partially uprooted and destroyed during construction due to the city's lack of protection of the area. I'm not going to put it entirely on them. But it was you know and for us what we're trying to do is learn how do we ensure if you're not laying your body down in front of the lawnmower to how do we protect these areas we'll get in get traveled to that because sometimes people come in and they see flowers and they think oh, that's just some grass but this represents not only taxpayers monies this represents health, which represents stormwater management does represent represents pollinators and just the general health of our communities. So it is really important. It's not a matter of getting the investment versus protecting the natural spaces. We can have both of those things. encasing by puts it to you like you have to choose between the construction or your natural area. You don't have to choose. We deserve both
I'm Nikki I'm at sidewalk Detroit. I'm also a resident of brightMore. And so long before I've worked for sidewalk I just kind of on my own with a group of neighbors started being a caretaker of the eliza howell park nature trail which leads into the neighborhood. So those of you guys who have visited the eliza howell Park Nature Trail is a stone bridge that crosses the Rouge river and then the trail leads up into the neighborhood. And it just, I think that I just wanted to kind of give you a really quick rundown of the history of the trail just as a way to like demonstrate that it doesn't take much in order to gain your work as natural as areas management group. So the original trail was uncover or original trail was built close to 100 years ago, but it was just repaired and rolled over. And it was uncovered by a group of community members around 2002 or so. And then we had just from that point on, we had volunteers come in and manage it. We had a group from the Student Conservation Corp, or like what Sally mentioned earlier, group of students came in during the summer and created extended the trail, the original pathway had been uncovered, but they extended it. So it went along almost a mile, the Rouge river.
And then over the last 14 years, we've
had close to 300 volunteers come out and just through their brute force have managed to keep the trail open and clear and ready for vistors. And along with that a lot of invasive
species removal, like I'm just finding.
I'm gonna say because I'm one versus two, we're going to our q&a and our discussion time. So
so we have 1015 minutes before we have to break and we're just going to open for questions. Does anyone have questions in the audience? Okay, I saw your hand up first. Your name and you know, maybe what time or place your representative? Yeah, I'm
Cameron from Green living science. So with our backyard, Detroit, and we picked a bunch of neighborhood parks, so smaller parks that are underserved. So my question was actually for Sally, because I know you mentioned like, in order to preserve some of the natural resources, it may be good to have like a pollinator garden and things like that. We ran into some issues with the maintenance plans of some of the parks and like the actual city departments, do you have any, like recommendations of how to make sure that your pollinator garden doesn't get mowed over or things like that, because we wanted to do like beautification grants, but wanting to also make sure that the projects were there to stay with with the city plans
I can say, case after case of enthusiastic group, getting the funding, putting in a project that looks beautiful, and then a couple years later, it gets mowed down, you know, because they don't like it or somebody doesn't know it was there. That's where my recommendation to make really specific borders around it. split rail fence, signage that say grow zone, Wildflower planting, pollinator garden, things like that. And then, you know, just the the maintenance. I think that was one of the most difficult parts, which I think probably got from our talk about invasive species is that funders love to give you the money to put in the project, but nobody wants to find a long term maintenance. And that's not something that you're going to be able to count on the city of Detroit to do. And it's also complicated, because, you know, it was features I had arrestor Darren was one of the reasons they called me on to the priority is okay, all these seeds are coming out. And it's just these little green things, and they don't have flowers. So how do we know what they are, was that a weed? Or is that a flower. So it takes a lot of training to learn to do that. So it's going to have to be some self education. But there's a lot of resources out there. And I know friends of the Rouge river organization actually has some workforce development, how to train people and how to do natural areas maintenance, because I think that is the future of this where cities, as our cities put in more and more of these products, somebody's going to have to maintain them and running along or around in this kind of play. You know, I'm sure you do some of that, but you've got to do a lot more to maintain natural things.
I think also just kind of a really basic level if you can contact with the person in charge of mowing, and when you if and when you move into a different role, pass that on to someone else and just keep throughout the growing season. Just keep in communication.
I think that that can be really helpful. Yeah, I guess piggyback on that for the most part. Once we got to know the lawyers in walked around with them. They understood you know what needs to happen when new contractors come in?
You know, but but that does go on.
Next questions. So what's the difference between meadow and prairie. So Meadow is farming general term for an area with grasses and flowers. For Prairie, the Eastern tall grass prairie is actually a specific habitat and a whole group of plants, including some of these native grasses, like Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem switchgrass. It's just a whole combination of plants. But a lot of people use these terms pretty generally.
So and I'm John Myers, and I'm with the Jefferson challmers riverfront Parks and I'm specifically I was working with Cam. And in the Harris gentry, we have a habitat feature that was installed 15-18 years ago by water. And we already have a $2 million coastal water grant to get the invasives out. And as you were saying, maintenance is a problem. So we have a brand new water feature and 15 years later in asking for more money. So what can we do together to come to some maintenance, where all our natural areas in the works, because once this project is done, we're right back to the same problems. And the problem was so bad that you can't even get to the habitat item because the invasives are growing mold, great gentleman services does not come out there very often. So if we don't clear the pathway, it's not.
I have a couple of thoughts. And then I was gonna ask Jeff. But one of the things I didn't mention is that here on Huron-Clinton Metro Parks actually has an MOU with the city to assist in managing the Rouge Park prairie. Because they have a lot of experience in managing natural areas. It's it's, it's a tough one. And I don't know Jeff or Kate in the back wanted to speak at all to any of the city's commitment to natural areas management as time goes on. So
sure, hello, everybody. Good afternoon. Yeah, I mean the commitment, I think, is sitting right here. Kate and I are really doing our best to stand up this work within the city its not a funded piece, it's part something that we've been able to elevate to make it part of our work. And so we're still really building it up. But the answer to that question is, it's going to take all of us, what we've identified is that there is a role for the city in all of this. But what we know and all of you know is it takes a lot of people to get this done, you know, I I really like the events that were shared, that you guys are putting on are fantastic. The coordination of stewardship, like all of this work is really about stewardship. It's how we all come together to maintain this in perpetuity. And so we're trying to figure out exactly what that relationship is. But, but we believe there's a role in it for both of us. But we really in some cases, and I think that some of the strength of your organizations are It's the power of the people that you all can bring the people there. So, you know, hopefully, again, like, you know, right now, my brain is kind of spinning around the information. But like, ideally, you know, we have sort of our level levels and partnerships that we hope that we can leverage in perhaps like in some of the more commercially aligned services. So I feel like there's overlap somewhere in all of that.
Thank you, Jeff. And, you know, just to add, if it's, if it's a big area, so you can just mow it, and it will come back because a lot of these native prairie plants, they have really thick, deep root systems, and so you burn them or you cut them down, and we'll take out the weeds and then there'll be able to come back. And then secondly, there's a whole group. There's a whole lot of resources in this room and in this community that could help you because ultimately, a lot of what it's going to take as a dedicated group like yours, to make sure the project gets maintained. Yeah, Antonio.
I mean, I think this is a huge issue. Like there's not enough money to fund the maintenance of it. They're just there isn't money. People don't think to fund that. It's not like a thing. So like, yeah, motivating volunteers to do it and roospark giving 1200 acres, there's so there's, I can work every day doing it. And we thought it would just start making a dent. So I personally think the I'm hoping the Detroit parks coalition could come together, perhaps green living science or other nonprofits like we did like a youth Civilian Conservation Corps type thing in the summer. I mean, like, there's a huge program that community of Detroit has, where they have youth helping like plant trees and water trees. And that's probably one of the biggest like summer youth G YT. Employers in the program. I think that like 70 students or something like that 100 students is a lot. But natural areas, management and stewardship could use something very, very similar. And I hope that like those of us who are managing public parks and space could come together through the Detroit parks coalition, to potentially talk about, like, pooling our money, because there's just so much work to be done. There's so many unemployed youth, there's so many skills that you learn doing this that could be transferable to other situations, future growth, and just that general relationship with ecology and nature would be benefited for young people who are in the city to be doing that work. So I hope that that's something that could happen. That's something that I've been talking to rob a little bit about, I think there's a great model in the Ann Arbor give 365 program, where they have like a lot of like, volunteer days to get people in parks and help manage it. But I think it's going to have to be like both people powered, volunteer powered. And yeah, I think we all should come together and talk about that.
Hi, I'm telling you about service. And as a part of my role, I oversee stewardship in the park as it relates to litter translated into plastic pollution and during the break, because I was interested in finding out how litter impacts of stewardship.
So the question was, how does litter impact what we do in the stewardship? I mean, that's another big volunteer thing really, for us. It's something that we're really trying to handle on our own. I mean, we haven't done yeah,
it's just an ongoing conversation. I think that's, that's the, that's really the answer. And we we would love to talk to people who maybe have found some really great solutions. this coming spring, we're gonna have an eco artists residency, where we'll, we're commissioning an artists to leave the group of community members, we're gonna pull plastics out of the river, we've done a few river cleanups supported by friends of the Rouge and most of its plastic water bottles, 75% of it. And so we're going to pull that out, clean it and turn it into an art piece is hopefully a public education piece that will inspire people to you know, it's not necessarily a partisan issue. It's a broader issue. So we have something that has to be kind of
universal. And I'd love to talk to you more about that we carry an art exhibition with environment, the artist at the belle isle aquariam, where we had lunch this past year, but I'm talking more about how to bring in arts and humanities and to narrative story around environmental issues, which is incredibly important, and also said
maybe one more question. She says
yes, hey, or, um, I live out in Hunt Park, which is very close to Neumeyer, almost almost all the way to 8 mile in the normal neighborhood. And we are in the process of doing this thing where we are trying to listen to maybe not prairie when it's meadow when it's a small part of it's only it's about seven acres. But you're talking about these control burns to condemn any invasive species. I think I kind of get your about how often would this needs to happen? Because that's what you're trying to do. We're going to try to start rolling.
That's a good question every couple of years, and it depends when you do a burn. You don't want to burn the whole seven acres because it's going to affect your wildlife there. And you want them to have reservoirs, places where they can go to get out of the fire. So burn a patch of that one year and then a bird patch about another year. And then there's also thinking around the spring burn versus a fall burn and what plants that they affect. Burning is an expensive process. You have to contract it out and I think it's about $5,000 an acre. And there are some local companies that do this The city of Ann Arbor is an excellent example. They actually have a whole thing called natural areas preservation. They do invasive species management and they have their own burn crew that they take volunteers for. And they routinely burn a bunch of their parks. So that might be a great model for Detroit over time. And maybe Jeff could train people to burn the burn crew volunteers get a lot of young people involved. But yeah.
So we are gonna wrap it up. So in closing, how many of you are inspired to look at your natural areas and do something about them? Really excited about that? And I'm excited about getting more youth involved in doing this because they are the future. So thank you very much.
