We are going wild, rewilding our urban and rural lands!
At Exploration Green in Clear Lake, the Houston Sierra Club planted trees, shrubs, and wildflowers in a green space that used to be a golf course. And all over our country, we are rewilding lands to protect wildlife corridors and habitat for native animals.
Rewilding Urban Areas
The former Clear Lake Golf Course is becoming a beautiful green space, Exploration Green, with detention ponds, wetlands, and native trees, bushes, and grasses. In April 2018, the Houston Sierra club helped plant wetlands iris, water plantain, and other plants in a series of detention ponds to reduce water pollution. With some trees and shrubs already established, ducks, herons, and other birds have already flocked to this area.
More rewilding is planned for Exploration Green this year with future expansion. The old golf cart paths will become trails, and a tree nursery is growing native trees to be planted soon.
For more information, see
https://www.explorationgreen.org/
Seabourne Creek Nature Park in Rosenberg used to be treeless, but now has mature trees, trails, a lake, and wetlands. Texas Master Naturalists worked to establish the park, restore the prairie, and create a butterfly garden. The Houston Sierra Club visited the park in August 2018, and enjoyed a guided tour by the Texas Master Naturalists.
For more information, see
https://txmn.org/coastal/volunteer-projects/signature/seabourne-creek-park/
Rewilding large urban areas in the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Seattle are projects of the REI Co-op. The goal is to allow people who live in cities an easy access to trails to connect with the outdoors.
For more information see
https://www.rei.com/blog/stewardship/rewilding-our-cities
Rewilding our Country
The Rewilding News weekly email newsletter highlights areas around the country that are in need of rewilding, or are in progress. Wildlife corridors will provide protected land and water pathways for trout, butterflies, deer and other animals. A detailed article explores “social carrying capacity” which was recently used to try to assess how many grizzly bears can live in Yellowstone Park; however, it is often used to justify killing animals, such as black bears in Maine, and mountain lions in Montana.
For more information see