Aerie - Spring 2000

by Alexander Brash,
Chief of the Urban Park Rangers

Exciting times with the Rangers! This year, we will focus our efforts on three major projects with long-lasting impact on the health of our parks and your ability to enjoy them. First, we will work to establish a series of nature preserves throughout the City's 27,000 acre park system. The idea is to clearly delineate the greatest gems in our emerald necklace and put in place the measures necessary to protect their ecological lustre. Working with the Agency's Natural Resources Group, various park administrators, community leaders, and others, the Rangers have mapped out an initial array of preserves. Subsequently, we will mark their boundaries, and work with communities to establish a new set of rules that will allow patrons to use these areas with minimal impact on their natural habitat.

Our second major initiative is Project X. Named for its first-year goal to re-introduce two species - one plant and one animal - into each of the City's five boroughs (thus ten in total), Project X has now dramatically expanded. The Rangers are working on several fronts. Foremost, we have increased the peer review of the program by inviting a committee of scientists to work with us. Next, we have broadened our focus to include the restoration of ecosystems, rather than just the re-introduction of species on an individual basis. Finally, we are actively broadcasting our success in order to share the news, encourage others in urban park environments to follow, and to rally your support in the communities.

Our third major initiative is to create a set of nature centers that will be a fulcrum for expanding our efforts in environmental education, and ideally each center will also become a nexus of community involvement at each site. This past year the Rangers opened a beautiful new Nature Center in Blue Heron Park in Staten Island, and this spring we will be opening another new center in Marine Park, Brooklyn. In addition, the New York State Department of State (Division of Costal Resources) has provided funding for the Rangers to create wonderful salt marsh exhibitry in Marine Park. With these funds we will also be able to create a series of inter-related signs and trails associated with Pelham Bay Park and refurbish the interior of its Nature Center.

We are proud to welcome two new Rangers, a Director and a Deputy Director for Planning and Development. The new Director, Sara Hobel, comes to us with degrees from Dartmouth and Columbia's Business School, extensive experience in the corporate and not-for-profit world, and on top of it all, a wonderful family. As the new Deputy Director for Planning and Development, Sarah Faragher Aucoin, has recently been working in the Ornithology Department in the American Museum of Natural History, prior to that she earned degrees at the University of California (B.A. Biology) and the University of Louisiana (M.S. Ecology). We look forward to their contributions as we enter this new era.