Hometown Habitat – Page 2 – The Meadow Project

Spring Into Action!

March 17, 2015/6 Comments/in Hometown Habitat /by meadowlady

Blooming soon! Amelanchier Canadensis (Serviceberry) photo Catherine B. Zimmerman

Spring is almost here and the Hometown Habitat crew is about to hit the road again to wrap up filming by the end of June. If you haven’t been following our journey, Hometown Habitat is a film that educates about the critical role native plants play in the survival and vitality of local ecosystems and, as Doug Tallamy would say, “keeping us humans around.” Catherine Zimmerman (The Meadow Project), Doug Tallamy and the Chesapeake Conservation Landscape Council have joined forces to bring this film to the public. Expected release Fall, 2015.

The winter months have been productive as we screen the voluminous footage already recorded, transcribe interviews and begin the process of putting together stories of Habitat Heroes across the United States. It’s good to have this time so we can assess the project and get a handle on elements still needed. And it was great to be working in a cozy studio, as we had one of the coldest winters ever and the snow kept up piling up! We are in the big thaw and ready to go!

Snow blankets Maryland backyard meadow. Catherine B. Zimmerman

Snow blankets Maryland backyard meadow. photo Catherine B. Zimmerman

Spring into action to help make Hometown Habitat a reality! If you haven’t donated, visit Chesapeake Conservation Landscape Council to see donation opportunities. With help from contributors like you, foundations, native plant societies, nurseries, and environmental activists, we have raised over $50,000 since July! Let me highlight a few of these amazing supporters.

American Beauties Native Plants kicked off Hometown Habitat fundraising by sponsoring a minute of production! And they continue to support!!

“Donating funds to make this documentary film possible was the right thing to do. It’s important work, and what better way to convey the message about native plants, pollinators and larval foods than by seeing the relationship first hand. Surely, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a movie is worth a million.”~ Steve Castorani

Echoing a Hometown Habitat message, Executive Director, Donna VanBuecken says: “One person can make a difference. Lorrie Otto (WO co-founder) started in 1977 just to try to heal the earth, one yard at a time. Through her insistence, that people become knowledgeable about native plants and natural landscapes, we have become Wild Ones. From a group of seven people, we have become four thousand and growing!”

To date, Wild Ones, across the country, have given over $10,000!

Georgia Native Plant Society’s donation spurred other NPSs to also support Hometown Habitat! Here is GNPS’ message to their members:

“Nearly all of GNPS members know Doug Tallamy’s works: his books, Bringing Nature Home and The Living Landscape: Designing for Beauty and Biodiversity, have revolutionized the public’s appreciation of native plants and how critical they are to maintaining biodiversity and ecosystems. His point of view is, of course, what we at GNPS are all about: we have been “bringing nature home” for two decades now, through our plant rescues, restoration sites, home gardens, plant sales, and plant donations. So, I’m very happy to let you know that we’ve been able to support Doug Tallamy’s ideas in yet another way, through donating to a new documentary, Hometown Habitat, which is being filmed by Catherine Zimmerman in partnership with Doug Tallamy.”

Brightening a dreary January, the Florida Wildflower Foundation joined the Hometown Habitat team with a generous donation, which advanced the film $5,000 closer to our fundraising goal!

Executive Director, Lisa Roberts, said, “FWF is glad we can be part of bringing this important message to the national spotlight”.

And then a big, WOW moment! Our good friends at NOFA Organic Land Care stepped up with a beautiful gift that put us over the $50,000 mark and nearly a third of the way to the Hometown Habitat goal!

“As Director of the NOFA Organic Land Care Program, I am pleased to donate $500 to Hometown Habitat because we are 100% behind the project and look forward to this film introducing thousands of people to organic and sustainable landscaping practices surrounding their homes. We have an average of 500 Accredited Organic Land Care Professionals in our organization and we officially are donating $1 for each professional who provides organic landscaping services to the public.” ~ Jenna Messier

In closing, a note from Doug. “You don’t have to save nature for a living, but you do have to save nature where you live! Please help Catherine and her team show you why and how we all can do this.” Doug Tallamy

Habitat Hero Update

November 29, 2014/1 Comment/in Hometown Habitat /by meadowlady

Since 2011, Todd Crail and his Toledo University, student army of Habitat Heros, have hand cleared invasive Buckthorn from Irwin Prairie State Nature Preserve. Using only loppers and saws they helped restore 20 acres of prairie in by-monthly Department of Environmental Sciences Service Learning days.

Since 2011, Oak Openings Wild One Todd Crail and his Toledo University, student army of Habitat Heros, have hand cleared invasive Buckthorn from Irwin Prairie State Nature Preserve. Using only loppers and saws they helped restore 20 acres of prairie in by-monthly Department of Environmental Sciences Service Learning days. The result-a return of native prairie species and students who are now connected to nature! The only carbon footprint left, their breath!!

The holidays are upon us and the Hometown Habitat team wants to express our gratitude to our followers and supporters! Educating people to include native plants in their landscapes is our mission. Whether it is city planning departments, town councils, churches, schools, landscape designers or individuals, people all over the country are embracing this important mission. Your contribution helps us get our message out to these people and many more who are learning about the benefits native plants provide to their hometowns.

Hometown Habitat is a big project and as independent filmmakers, we simply can’t make this film without raising money for the production costs. Donations, like the amazing donation just received from Wild Ones, allow us to pay for another day of production. And with their gift, we topped $26,000! But there is still a long way to go to reach our goal. Please join our team and make a tax-deductible contribution at www.chesapeakelandscape.org/hometown-habitat. We need you!

Each of the stories we are traveling to tell highlights people or organizations who are using native plants to heal and return balance and diversity to ecosystems in their hometowns. We call them Habitat Heroes. Here’s a look at some of those Heroes.

“Babbling Brook” EcoArtist Lucy Keshavarz transformed a drab dry detention area into this vibrant wildlife shelter using Florida native plants. photo Catherine B. Zimmerman

Associate Producer/ Soundman Rick Patterson and I have logged over 10,000 miles since last April, when production began in south Florida where we feature EcoArtists. These artists are finding ways to use their art to help solve environmental problems in their hometowns. We follow three, unique artists as they identify eco-issues, collaborate with experts to solve the issue, and involve the community in the eco-art solution.

Rebecca decided planting trees in Rebecca, one of the thousands of volunteers helping to make it possible to reach the planting goal of one million trees!

Rebecca, one of the thousands of volunteers helping to make it possible to reach the planting goal of one million trees!

Tree Canopy. We just returned from filming in New York City. Something really marvelous is happening there. Tree planting and lots of them! The Million TreesNYC Campaign set out in 2007 to restore and increase the tree canopy by a million trees in ten years. Unbelievably, the project is two years ahead of schedule! We explore just how that is possible and the multiple eco-system services the tree canopy provides.

Steve Apfelbaum shows us the lake at Prairie Crossing where the water has been filtered by the native plant landscape and is pure enough to swim in.

Steve Apfelbaum. Ecologist Steve Apfelbaum, has been doing ecological restoration work since the 70’s. He believes that, in “the best conservation developments the health of the land is the first consideration. Healthy natural systems should be integrated with the built environment, to the mutual benefit of people and nature.” We follow Steve and visit Prairie Crossing, (Grayslake, Illinois) where over half of the acreage is legally protected from development. The site design filters storm water runoff through these protected prairies and wetlands-no storm drain infrastructure! It can be done!

Seneca students learn about native plants including growing and harvesting the traditional Three Sisters natives, corn, beans and squash.

Native American Indians. The most widely used definition of “What is a native plant?” is: “A plant that was present before the continent was colonized by Europeans.” This is a look at what the Seneca Indian Nation is doing to restore their spaces to pre-European development. They are “strengthening their roots to the land with a new commitment to use only indigenous plants and trees in public landscaping. The Western New York tribe is believed to be the first to formalize a practice that tribes throughout the country are embracing as a way to preserve Native American culture and the environment.”

Look for our next update and more stories of Habitat Heroes!

Catherine and the Hometown Habitat Team

A Tree Grows in…

November 10, 2014/2 Comments/in Hometown Habitat /by meadowlady

New York City View photo Catherine B. Zimmerman

The light is fading as we cruise down Interstate 95, on our way home to Maryland, after a week of filming in New York City for Hometown Habitat. What an unexpected story we travel to tell of the growing tree canopy in New York City’s five boroughs. My imprinted image of the city is asphalt, concrete, glass, metal, no birds, no bees, definitely no butterflies … But, as documentary filmmakers, we try to set aside those images and let the story unfold. And so it has.

It turns out something really marvelous has been happening in NYC. Tree planting! And lots of them! Million TreesNYC Campaign set out in 2007 to restore and increase the tree canopy by a million trees in ten years. Unbelievably, the project is two years ahead of schedule!

new-york-commuter-businessman-crowd-of-people-walk-down-the-street-sidewalk-in

By 2030, population in NYC is projected to grow by one million more people.

It all started with studies that showed that the population of New York City would swell to one million more people by 2030. Big problem. The carrying capacity of the city, the ability for the environment to sustain all those people with food, habitat, water, clean air and other essentials available in the environment, was clearly not possible. So the Bloomberg administration took a very progressive, science based approach to the issue and created PlaNYC, a sustainability and resiliency blueprint for New York City. The Million TreesNYC campaign was just one of the 127 initiatives launched by PlaNYC to keep pace with the population projection.

Hometown Habitat focuses in on the partnerships formed and the habitat heroes that make planting one million trees feasible.

Enter the US Forest Service and GIS mapping. Using i-Tree , the US Forest Service collaborated with NYC Parks to determine the existing New York City tree canopy. “i-Tree provides baseline data that you can use to demonstrate value and set priorities for more effective decision-making.”

Jacqueline Lu, Director of GIS for NYC Parks, explains that GIS mapping made it possible to embark on this massive scale, greening campaign. image from Hometown Habitat Director, Catherine B. Zimmerman

This tool allowed NYC Parks to map tree canopy and quantify the value of trees. They discovered that for every dollar spent to plant a tree, the gain would be five dollars in eco-systems services such as, storm water capture, air quality improvement, climate control, nutrient mitigation, habitat, pollination and recreational benefits. And the very cool thing is, these are not one-time benefits. Trees can live well beyond the lives of the people planting the trees and continue delivering these amazing services for many years and generations of New Yorkers to come.

GIS tracking allowed New York City Parks and Recreation to target parts of the city with critical needs for tree canopy. It turns out those areas with low tree density also had higher health issues, such as respiratory illness. That’s where planting began.

That brings me to the rest of the story, how to plant one million trees? Partnerships! NYC Parks & Recreation, The New York Restoration Project, community volunteers and private citizens are planting and growing the NYC tree canopy. Seven years into the program, it is a smooth running operation.

NYC Parks and Recreation installs trees in right-of-ways with contractor crews and plants in natural areas, with support from citizen volunteers. Only native trees are planted in the natural areas.

Matthew Stephens, Director of Street Tree Planting explained the planting process and the amazing increase in annual tree installation from 6000 trees per year to well over 20,000 since the program began.

Matthew Stephens, Director of Street Tree Planting, inspects tree quality as he explained the planting process and the amazing increase in annual tree installation from 6000 trees per year to well over 20,000 per year since the program began. image from Hometown Habitat Director, Catherine B. Zimmerman

Volunteers at Pelham Bay Park restoration planting begin the day! image from Hometown Habitat Director Catherine B. Zimmerman

The New York Restoration Project works with private property owners to plant trees and collaborates with local non-profits to sponsor tree give-aways to residents who want to plant trees.

Couple takes home Pawpaw trees at New York Restoration Project tree give away!

Couple takes home native Pawpaw trees at New York Restoration Project tree give away!

The result. Many, many new trees and many new tree stewards. We saw this in action when we filmed natural area restoration efforts. Hundreds of volunteers, family, friends and co-workers showed up, rain or shine, to help restore precious tree canopy. In the last event we filmed at Pelham Bay Park, 5000 trees were planted in one morning! All with volunteers. An army of Habitat Heroes!

The Lee Family wanted to set a record for planting but soon lost count…

Co-workers finally manage to get the tree out of its pot!

Rebecca decided planting trees in Pelham Bay Park was a fine way to spend her birthday! photo Catherine B. Zimmerman

So, this is what is possible, a million trees in ten- NO- eight years! Bravo, New York City and citizens! You are a true model for cities across the country.

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