NY Biodiversity at AMNH

Today I attended Living with Nature: A Conference on Sustaining the NY Metro Region's Biodiversity Through Local Action at AMNH. Co-sponsored by the NYC Soil & Water Conservation District, the agenda had panels on education, arthitecture and green cityscape, food systems, consumer choice, transportation, and natural systems.

I missed the keynote addresses, but heard that Al Appleton was excellent. The architecture panel was great (except for the one who was incredibly lack luster. We shan't name names). As I expected, there was a lot of talk of greenroofs. The Gaia Institute has one in the Bronx using native plants. But really, all the greenways and greenroofs won't provide habitat for shade-tolerant forest herbs. So it's not all about building. You can't construct your way out of land conservation.

I sat in on the natural systems panel in the afternoon. It was excellent as well. The DEC representative was especially lively and made several good points...nature does need a Madison Avenue marketing campaign! Carolyn Summers exclaimed that there should be "no more extirpations"...brava!