Out of the Box - Nature in the City

nature in the city is a fantastic opportunity for the city to bring nature closer to residents and make sure that everybody has access and not just for people but also for plants and wildlife just to make sure that there's a really fantastic diversity of experiences at different scales that everybody gets to enjoy this program focuses on two primary goals first ensuring that every resident lives and works within a ten minute walk to nature and second improving and stewarding our open spaces to create more ecological diversity and a broader range of recreational opportunities for our residents nature in the city has been a couple years in the making it started in in a planning division of the city and then over the past two years it's moved into a partnership with natural areas department and that's where it's it's housed currently and so the great thing about nature in the city is we're able to sort of take the next step in conservation within the community where we're not just looking at city-owned properties but we're getting into the public/private kind of partnership area and we're able to work with a variety of different partners to continue the great work that of conservation that the city's been doing for decades just in a slightly different way according to the u.s. census eighty percent of Americans now live in cities and that means now more than ever were experiencing nature in an urban setting that means it's even more important than it has been in the past to be protecting habitat and our access to nature within our urban core nature in the city really builds upon the progress that's been made by our parks natural areas and stormwater departments over the past 40 years it takes it to the next next level by filling in the gaps in between our existing parks and open spaces so we're looking beyond just public spaces how can we better utilize our our backyards the courtyards near office buildings and other spaces in our community to to really maintain and improve our quality of life and also protect habitat and the biodiversity that we're so proud of here in Fort Collins I think the innovative part of this is is we're looking across the community regardless of who owns the the parcels you know looking for partners in a wide spectrum of areas and we're looking at a lot of different land uses so urban AG is a great example of a land use that is really great or it can be really great great for a wildlife if done really well one of our citizen science her findings was that the the butterfly abundance in urban AG properties was one of the highest in the community second only to natural areas and that was a really great thing that so even though it's productive it's working landscape it's still great wildlife habitat potentially Fort Collins is uniquely positioned right now to make some really cute decisions on how the vacant lands and open spaces within the urban core are utilized and how they tie into the amazing natural areas that already exist on the outskirts of the city and that's really unique and the innovative thing is the capacity to stitch those spaces together and to create connected and interconnected network that's accessible for everybody another great example of nature that exists within our community as the gardens on Spring Creek just this past summer a rare bird was found right in the middle of the city at the gardens and our wildlife connectivity analysis has shown that the gardens is one of the main corridors the main one of the main hubs for birds traveling throughout the community fort collins voters recently approved funding for nature in the city through the building on basic sales tax with that funding throughout 2016 and beyond we'll be implementing a suite of pilot projects on properties throughout the city most cases partnering with private property owners in some cases schools community organizations nonprofit organizations businesses and developers to implement the nature in the city vision at all scales so nature can occur at the building scale on a site in a neighborhood and at the ecosystem scale overall one really exciting thing that's going to come up this summer is a living wall and that's a really unique opportunity it's a collaboration with CSU and other partners and it will be a multi phased approach so we can monitor it over time and it's kind of unprecedented to have a living wall that's up year-round as a year-round installation in this type of climate so this first year we'll be testing what kind of species work well and how much water it needs and really kind of fine-tuning things so that we can share that information with the public partnering currently with Audubon Rockies on a habitat hero garden at the Manhattan townhomes on Horsetooth and Mason along the Mason Trail to provide within new development provide wildlife habitat as well nature in the city is innovative because it takes the next step it really looks at those those spaces in between and making sure that even if you don't live near the puter river trail or the Spring Creek Trail you have an easy way to get out relax experience the health benefits of nature see birds see butterflies see wildlife even in your own backyard we've partnered with the GIS department within the city to create a 10-minute walk to nature map that shows gaps within the community where people can't easily access nature so we're gonna be going out to those areas and looking for ways to provide access for local residents to be able to access nature within that ten minutes so it's so you don't have to jump in a car and go somewhere to to get some some great access to nature and so we want to make it just as easy as possible for people to jump on the trail walk or run or bike over there and and get some great access to nature so we really see nature as a flexible concept something that people can access and interact with throughout their daily lives without having to leave the boundaries of the city natural areas and open space are so beloved by the whole community and it's such an important part of everybody's life whether it's after school taking your kids to the park or taking a walk down a trail or you know getting on your bike and heading out to one of our open spaces it's so important and we know that the public really values it moving forward and I we're really lucky and you know we might take it for granted but it's really important as we develop to make sure that we include those spaces and make sure that connectivity continues to be a priority so that not just today but long into the future we always get to have open spaces and access to nature everywhere in the sea you

Channel: City of Fort Collins

Views: 9,381

Rating: 4.9480519 out of 5

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Id: 3dIYYJ3MqlM

Length: 7min 27sec (447 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 09 2016