The Fish and Wildlife service ruled that wolves in certain states no longer need protection, but some groups feel that decision might put wolf populations at risk again. (Photo by Katherine Glover)
Wildlife groups have gone to court, seeking to reverse a recent federal
decision that took the grey wolf off the list of protected
species. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
Wildlife groups have gone to court, seeking to reverse a recent federal
decision that took the grey wolf off the list of protected
species. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
The Fish and Wildlife Service ruled in February that the wolf
population was strong enough in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan that
the wolves no longer had to be listed as endangered or threatened. The
states can euthanize problem wolves or even develop a wolf hunt.
But three groups have just filed a lawsuit over the federal action.
Rebecca Judd is an attorney with the Humane Society of the United
States. she says the door has been opened to large attacks on the wolf
population.
“We don’t think that the wolf’s recent progress toward recovery should now
be squandered by exposing them to killings and state-authorized hunting
and trapping programs.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service says the states in the western Great
Lakes region have good plans for protecting the grey wolf, but the
federal agency is preparing a five year monitoring effort.
Volunteers with the Greening of Detroit plant about 4,000 trees
each year in the city. (Photo by Sarah Hulett)
These trees will help clean some of the pollution out of the
air. This tree planting is happening around a recreation center in the
southwest part of the city where the air is polluted with soot from
diesel trucks. (Photo by Sarah Hulett)
Money might not grow on trees. But researchers at a think tank devoted to saving America’s forests say dollar signs can be attached to all those oaks, maples, and sycamores. They’re hoping their environmental calculus can help convince local governments that it’s in their best interest to protect the trees they still have, and to plant new ones.
The GLRC’s Sarah Hulett reports:
Transcript
Money might not grow on trees. But researchers at a think tank devoted to saving
America’s forests say dollar signs can be attached to all those oaks, maples, and
sycamores. They’re hoping their environmental calculus can help convince local
governments that it’s in their best interest to protect the trees they still have, and to plant
new ones. The GLRC’s Sarah Hulett reports:
If trees could unionize, they’d be able to put together a pretty compelling case for hefty
compensation packages from the cities where they work. That’s the general idea behind a
series of reports put together by the advocacy group American Forests. The organization
looked at the amount of tree-covered land in several US cities and for each city, it put
together a dollars-and-cents case for their protection.
Trees in Detroit got a recent appraisal from the group. Trees shade more than 31 percent
of the city. Besides helping to keep the city cool, the report says Detroit’s trees take out
two million pounds of pollution out the air every year. That’s worth about five
million dollars. And it said if the city’s trees were gone, the city would have to build 400
million dollars worth of storm water drains. That’s because trees act as buffers during
heavy rains, and help control flooding.
Cheryl Kollin is the Director of Urban Forestry at American Forests. She says the bottom
line for politicians and city planners is money. She says they’re not going to save trees
just because they’re nice to look at:
“And I think it’s really building that awareness that trees — as wonderful and beautiful as
they are for their aesthetic qualities — it’s so important to connect the ecological
properties that they have and the economic benefits they provide. Because it really is going to
be that economic argument that makes decision-makers do things differently.”
Like a lot of cities, Detroit relies on a non-profit group to raise money for urban
reforesting. Today, the Greening of Detroit is planting trees around a recreation center in
one of the most polluted areas of the city, where diesel soot from heavy truck traffic
contributes to a high asthma rate.
Rebecca Salminen-Witt is the director of the Greening. She says this is a critical time for
this struggling rust belt city:
“We want to see some development in Detroit. We want to prove to outsiders that good things are
happening here in a visual way. Any development is good development, right? And, you know, that
is simply not true.”
Witt says as the city seeks to rebound, the focus can’t just be on new buildings. She says
it’s important that planners and developers figure trees and green space into Detroit’s
future and she says the American Forests’ economic data and satellite images will help
her make that case:
“Having those statistics, and having that visual representation of this is what it looks, you know, here’s your
heat island effect with trees and without trees.”
That visual picture of tree loss proved especially powerful in the nation’s capital.
American Forests surveyed Washington, D.C.’s trees in 1999. Its report said the city lost
nearly two-thirds of its tree cover between 1985 and 1997.
The Washington Post published the before-and-after satellite photos. They showed huge
swaths of black gobbling up what a dozen years earlier looked green from far above the
earth. It looked like a cancer had wiped out the healthy parts of the city whose slogan is
the “city of trees.”
“That got the attention of a variety of people. One person in particular was Betty Casey.”
That’s Dan Smith of the Casey Tree Endowment Fund. The group was established thanks
to a 50 million dollar contribution from Betty Casey, the widow of developer Eugene B.
Casey:
“And I believe the contribution was if not the largest gift ever for environmental action,
certainly one of the largest.”
That sort of cash gift is a dream for most cities. But the Greening of Detroit’s Rebecca
Salminen-Witt says she does expect to be able to use the information from American
Forests to raise money. And she says it will also help her small organization figure out
which parts of the city are the most in need of trees:
“We have to decide where we’re going to allocate our resources. And having a tool that makes
allocation of resources in an area where there’s a great need easier, or make more sense, is
really important to a non-profit organization.”
Witt says her first pitch will be to the corporations and civic leaders planning a
redevelopment along Detroit’s riverfront. Witt says the plans she’s seen call for some
trees and green space. But armed with satellite pictures and economic data, she hopes
she’ll be able to make the case for a few more trees.
A non-profit group devoted to saving America’s forests is putting a dollar value on cities’ trees in an effort to convince local planners
to save existing trees and plant new ones. The GLRC’s Sarah Hulett has this report:
Transcript
A non-profit group devoted to saving America’s forests is putting a
dollar value on cities’ trees in an effort to convince local planners
to save existing trees and plant new ones. The GLRC’s Sarah
Hulett reports:
The group American Forests has compiled reports for more than
two dozen US cities. The studies use satellite images to see how
most cities are losing trees over time. They also put a price tag on
the work trees do for a city.
Rebecca Salminen-Witt is the director of a non-profit tree planting
group called the Greening of Detroit. She says people appreciate
the beauty of trees. But she says they need to be shown there’s an
economic need for trees:
“They want us to come, they contact us constantly, they give us
their time and their money. So we know how important it is to
them. But the evidence we really have is anecdotal.”
American Forests says it can show that cities’ trees can be worth
hundreds of millions of dollars for the work they do cleaning
pollution out of the air and helping to control storm water.
Some of the large state asylums for the mentally ill built in the late 1800s were designed with the idea that natural beauty has a healing effect. And architects designed the buildings to be majestic… not just institutional looking. In the decades since the asylums closed, their stately grounds remain valuable. But many of the fine buildings either have been torn down or are facing demolition. Some are being partially renovated for new uses. The GLRC’s Bob Allen reports on one of the very few in the country that’s being fully restored:
Transcript
Some of the large state asylums for the mentally ill built in the late 1800s
were designed with the idea that natural beauty has a healing effect. And
architects designed the buildings to be majestic… not just institutional
looking. In the decades since the asylums closed, their stately grounds
remain valuable. But many of the fine buildings either have been torn
down or are facing demolition. Some are being partially renovated for
new uses. The GLRC’s Bob Allen reports on one of the very few in the
country that’s being fully restored:
Gently winding roads guide you through views of century-old trees and
rolling lawns that make up the surroundings of this old asylum. Open
meadows are remnants of the farm where residents raised all their own
food. The physical labor and park-like setting contributed to their
therapy.
Ray Minervini loves the surroundings… but he says the buildings
themselves added a healing dimension.
“If you stand on the front lawn of this building you don’t have to be a
student of architecture to appreciate that it’s a thing of beauty. I mean the
proportions of the building, the size of the windows, the pitch of the roof,
the height of the spires. It’s the way that we used to construct buildings. We
don’t do that anymore.”
The four story brick and stone structures soar above the trees. Developer
Ray Minervini says they were built to last 500 years or more.
He thinks they deserve to be preserved as much as the natural
environment does.
“The brick you’re looking at here were laid 121 years ago. The stone
foundations, you can see about 4 and a half feet of limestone, they
actually laid stone into the ground as opposed to concrete.
Those stone walls are 2 and a half feet thick.”
But across the country many of these large state mental hospitals have
fallen into ruin and are being demolished.
Kate Allen is graduate student in the architecture program at Columbia
University in New York City. She studies asylums designed according
to the plan of psychiatrist Thomas Kirkbride. He adapted principles of
care from the Quakers. They include plenty of light and fresh air in a
clean idyllic setting.
Allen has found records for 64 asylums built in the Kirkbride style.
Twenty of them have been torn down. Of those remaining she considers
a dozen under threat right now, and she thinks the Minervini Group in
Michigan offers the only existing model for renovating an entire site.
“Not only are they preserving the smaller structures and the Kirkbride
core, but through the historic easement, the landscape it can’t be
encroached on with development. It gives you that feeling that it was a
community once.”
But the Northern Michigan Asylum barely escaped destruction. After the
hospital closed it sat vacant for nearly a quarter century. Gaping holes in
the roof caused a lot of water damage. An outside developer wanted to
demolish and build new, but a hometown group stepped in and blocked
the wrecking ball. Then along came Ray Minervini with his vision for a
mix of new uses in the historic buildings.
Raymond Minervini is Ray’s son and business partner. He works on
marketing the project, and he says the people who believe in the vision
and are willing to invest in it are making it happen.
“And in a way they’re co-developers too because they’re stepping
forward with their capital to purchase space or lease space to establish a
business or create a home. That’s what makes the preservation possible.
Otherwise this is just a building waiting to fall down.”
The Minervini Group has been working on the redevelopment for nearly
six years. It’s a huge enterprise.
The core of the old state hospital and surrounding buildings represent a
million square feet for redevelopment, and Ray Minervini says that
translates into a 200 to 300 million dollar project… but it’s going
forward without a lot of fanfare.
“We’re doing it in phases, one section at a time, so it doesn’t appear so
big. We are under the radar screen, but collectively when you look at the
whole site and realize what that equates to it’s the largest rehab project
for sure in the Midwest.”
The Minervini Group has completed the first segment of what they call
The Village at Grand Traverse Commons. Already built and fully
occupied are business and condo spaces plus a restaurant and art gallery.
Ray Minervini says there’s still a long way to go, but with lights on and
people in the building there’s a growing sense the place is coming back
to life.
The Fish and Wildlife service ruled that wolves in certain states no longer need protection, but some groups feel that decision might put wolf populations at risk again. (Photo by Katherine Glover)
