Urban greenery

Natural History, April, 2005 by Adrian Benefe

The ecological study of Pelham Bay Park, reported in Stephan Reebs's Samplings article "Green Gone" (12/04-1/05), highlights the challenges of maintaining biodiversity in urban settings.

The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation is committed to promoting a better overall ecosystem in New York City. Since its creation in 1984, our Natural Resources Group has documented and mapped the city's vegetation communities, and it has been able to assess the menace of invasive nonnative species. By removing these invasive species and replacing them with native flora we have restored more than 335 acres of New York City's natural areas. In just the past three years, we have restored more than a hundred acres of woodland and wetland throughout New York City, including land along the Bronx River and in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. In that time we have planted more than 54,000 native trees and shrubs and reintroduced 88,000 herbaceous plants citywide.

Adrian Benepe

City of New York Parks

and Recreation

New York, New York