Real Audio Recording   

When most people think of Central Park, they don't think of it in terms of natural resources or habitat. But ten years ago, the Central Park Conservancy, in partnership with the New York City Parks and Recreation Department, embarked on a program to manage and restore the park's 130 acres of woodland landscapes and their associated habitats, by using the principles of ecological restoration. By doing so, we hope to attain three important goals: First, to provide a healthy, diverse habitat for wildlife -- particularly the migratory populations of birds, bats and insects that need every fragment along the Atlantic flyway that's left to rest and refuel. And we are one of those fragments -- and I'll give you an example. Of course, not all these birds are migrants, but 272 species of birds have been sighted in Central Park, and they keep coming -- even though the habitat was, until recently, deteriorating.

Second, we hope to provide a model of the forest for city people as a place for observation, education and enjoyment of an important and fast-disappearing ecosystem. And, finally, we hope to recapture the historic design intent of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the original designers of Central Park.

Now, many people would ask: Well, how can you satisfy both history and habitat at the same time? And I would say: Let's look at the historic landscape types, and it will give us the real clue. Most of Central Park's land was designed to evoke the rural farm landscape: placid lakes; rolling meadows; and they even imported animals to complete the scene. The mall on Bethesda Terrace was designed as the formal gathering place for all New Yorkers -- sort of like an urban al fresco living room. What was left over was the rugged, steep, rocky land, and here the design intent was to imitate the scenery of the Adirondack Mountains. Now, although Olmsted and Vaux did not group the plants in what we would call "plant communities," and they did use a lot of nonnative plants, these picturesque landscapes were always meant to look and feel like a forest. Our belief today is that we can do more than imitate -- we can actually use the principles of ecology to create a working forest ecosystem.

And it was these picturesque landscapes that were designated park woodlands in 1982. When we did this we really didn't understand their structure and function. So on the assumption that if you don't know what you have you can't manage it, we did a series of surveys to find out what was there, and, hopefully, to find out how it was working.

The first series of surveys actually was done for the 1982 rebuilding plan for the entire park, and it separately inventoried the ground plain and the tree population of the park, which includes the woodlands. The is the ground plain survey, and what this began to tell us was that our forest floor was in trouble. See, all of these lines running up and down, actually, the slopes here? We called these "desire lines." They were places that people walked offpath, and also rode their bicycles. They were compacted, eroded; they had no leaf litter, no plants. And, of course, all of the soil that was eroding was going down into our catch basins, covering our walkways and silting up our waterbodies. And this, if you see it as a whole, one or two of these desire lines really doesn't make a difference. But when you get the entire pattern in place, it begins to really make an impact on the health of the system.

Our tree survey mainly told us that we had both native and nonnative plants in our woodlands, and that there was really no dominant species there. This will give you an idea of what a desire line actually looks like in the field. The problem with these desire lines is that they are not static. And the next problem is that they never grow smaller. That's not diversity; and it's not good habitat.

Because this survey that we did in 1982 really didn't tell us much about the structure of our ecosystem, we did what we called an "entitation survey." Actually, it was done by the natural resources group of the Parks Department, and they looked at the vertical composition of our woodlands and categorized similar structure. Here you can see the dark-green areas do show that we did have a forest structure present; the light-green areas there are emerging forests. But what was also noted was the fact that we didn't have dominant plant communities. Again, those very small -- it's very difficult to see, but the very tiny outline patterns here indicate that each is a different type of plant community structure, even though it was considered to be forested. So we really didn't have what you would see in a wilderness forest upstate. It also gave us some quantitative data that our emergent tree canopy was predominantly Norway and sycamore maple.

Then, in 1991, after members of our woodlands advisory board wanted more evidence of habitat decline, we did what we called a "health study,";this wasn't really a scientific survey -- it was more like a reading of the landscape. But it actually gave us very, very good information to help us visualize our problem and to formulate some initial management strategies to bring back health.

Now, you can see on the map here -- the darkest-patched areas. We categorized them as "degraded," because in those areas there was really no native regeneration going on. The plants that were going to be coming up and becoming the future forest were all nonnative -- they were two specie, Norway maple and sycamore maple. And the most predominant forb on the ground was another nonnative, Japanese knotweed.

The further problem that we saw was: Yes, there is the heart of the cancer -- it's contained, but the cancer was spreading. The next darkest areas actually showed that these were degraded areas; and it actually showed that nonnative takeover was actually spreading out from the heart.

This is basically, when you look at it on the ground, what you have. You have at least 50% native trees in the canopy -- things like oak and tulip trees and sweet gum. And on the ground we have none of those trees regenerating -- it's all just a screen of Norway and sycamore maple. That's what it looks like....

So then, these surveys visualize two important problems that were also culled out by users of the woodlands in a key informant survey: offpath trampling, bike riding and vehicle use, and the proliferation of invasive nonnative plants. The third problem cited by the users was the lack of security -- but, actually, it turned out to be a symptom of other problems, including the lack of maintenance and security presence, the lack of easy access and, indeed, our nonnative species invasion.

Because not much was known at the time about the ability of our urban forest to recover, we did not start out with a long-range management plan. Instead, we agreed to begin to tackle the problems through incremental management changes and by monitoring the response so that these results could begin to inform a realistic long-range management plan program.

Now, I would like to quickly show you a few of our projects that we have started in the last seven years, in the woodlands and adjacent landscapes; and show you how those landscapes responded to our intervention. Here we are at Glen Span Arch; this is where we actually began removing Norway and sycamore maple. And we did this only be removing those seedlings and saplings under four inches in diameter. We still have the trees there -- but it's incredible what we realized when we did this. It began to bring in light into the ground plain -- and not only was that good for regeneration of some of the native forbs, but it was also excellent for perceived safety. People were able to see further into the landscape and be able to relate to it much better.

On the other side of this arch, we worked on control of Japanese knotweed; we actually went in and did some planting. But, all of a sudden, after we did our planting -- you see those little ferns there -- up popped a native snakeroot. That's the one that's blooming there -- which we didn't plant, and didn't come in with new soil, and we were just tickled to death. We're assuming, of course, that the seed was in the seed bank and was released when this work was done.

Now, here's a project that actually looks at the other side of the coin, taking in area that didn't have any plants at all, or very few, and seeing if we could actually get a forest floor started. And this is in the ramble -- this is one of the few projects that we have done in the ramble. That is right across the street, if you're interested in visiting. And here we had the trees left, and only a few plants that were in front of the trees. Actually the tree trunks protected them from the mountain-biking activity, which had destroyed the landscape in the first place.

Now, we always do a lot of soil work on our projects. On this one we did, too, but we went a step further -- because the scientists that worked with us on our advisory board had been telling us that many of our problems are soil-related. So we actually did a microbial survey, and we'll be testing it again in a couple of years, to see if, really, we can answer the question of whether the soil is healing itself. We used our regular trauma blankets -- notice we use a lot of medical words -- and also we used a new technique that's actually supposed to be better for tree roots, when you have a lot of tree roots, called "vertical staking." We imported it from Europe, and it worked for us very well. The mountain bikers, of course, thought we were persecuting them.

Here you can see our first plants that we did put in. We did plant here, because there wasn't anything in the seedbank... was a real tough one. In fact, our toughest woodland plant that we have in the woodlands in Central Park is called the woodland aster. And this is a policy of ours, that we are really planning on incrementally increasing the health of our landscapes, and not going in and trying to plant trillium and woodland orchids in sort of the first year of a recuperation-restoration project.

Now, we're hoping that, in many of these places, we can go in -- maybe in five or ten years, once the soil structure stabilizes -- and actually put in plants like that. And then, in addition, once we begin restoring large blocks of habitat, to even consider maybe introducing some new faunal species -- not new in the sense that they've never been there, but new in the fact that they haven't been there for a long time.

Now, in order to solve the access and safety problems, the Conservancy had some very straightforward approaches. They hired a woodlands manager; they hired a crew; they got small vehicles. And, as a matter of fact, they even got small vehicles for the police, so that they could actually get in and patrol the woodland pathways. In addition, where we didn't have woodland pathways, or they were buried under two feet of silt, they went in and actually restored these pathways, so that everybody could gain access to the woodlands.

Now, another, harder problem that we've tried many different ways of solving is the offpath trampling and bike riding. And the first thing that we realized we had to do was, we had to tell people about it -- because, obviously, nobody's going to read our minds. And walking offpath is fun when you get into the woods. But when thousands of people do it every month, of course, it is completely out of the range of the carrying capacity for the landscape.

So we began to use signs -- not only just for rules, but also for educational signage. And many people in the park ribbed me, because I was using these long explanations and using lots of ecological words. And they said: You know, New Yorkers don't read -- they'll never read it; they'll just cut the fence and go in. But, indeed, people do stop and read these things, and we're hoping that this begins the subtle education of our users, you know, with some very important ecological concepts.

Another thing that we did -- a subtle reminder to stay on the path -- our crews are continuing to build these low rustic fences, and indeed, they do work for a large percentage of our park users. As a matter of fact, many people use them as benches.

In some cases, we are taking back the forest floor, and this is, in the main, what we want to do. Here is a huge desire line that we took back, and we're placing deadwood -- very artistically these days -- because we've found that mountain bikers don't like to ride on it. And so not only are we doing the forest floor a good deed, but we're also setting up some subtle messages there, too.

Another way that we are handling desire lines and offpath traffic is to actually give back part of the landscape. And here you can see -- it's just a map that shows those dark lines are desire lines -- and here's what it looks like on the ground. And what we've done is just to sort of stem the tide, but still offer a way for people to get off the asphalt path, is to provide what we call "adventure trails" into the center of some of the woodland areas.

We're also involved in trying to create new habitats, and when I say "new habitats" I'm not talking about creating something the world has never seen, but something that Central Park has never seen. These silt islands really didn't have very much going for them, but our crews got in there a couple of years ago and actually created an island and started to plant plants that we would not normally plant by the pathways, mainly because we're afraid of losing them from plant theft. But here, because it was a little bit more protected, we can plant -- we find we can plant ferns and cardinal flower and wonderful things. And, actually, we've taken this concept into the wider landscape of Central Park and have been building islands in our waterbodies for the very same reason -- wildlife can go there, and they're 99% safe from human beings.

Here's another new habitat that we're very proud of -- in fact, we're still working on it. This meadow of orchard grass and mugwort had been mowed, and then, for about nine years, left unmowed. We began a reverse sodbusting, using volunteers, and taking out the nonnatives and putting back a native tall grass and wildflower meadow. And, of course, again, we had to bring in the plants for this, because there was no extant seed bank. And you can see, by last fall, it was beginning to look pretty good. What did they say: When you build it, they will come? Well, they have come -- they're wonderful. We have all sorts of bugs and insects, and birds -- and, of course, following those little buggers are the people who do recreate by observing nature in the park.

I just want to say a little bit about stewardship -- I know I'm running over -- but it's one of the things that the Central Park Conservancy -- it's a new mission for this decade, and into the millennium, to begin to introduce stewardship to our park user. We've been doing it a little bit in the woodlands -- we have to get better -- and we're really out there trying to connect.

Now, I just have to say -- these guys are our woodlands advisory board, part of them. We also have scientists and our park managers. We have volunteers who actually work in the landscape itself. We've opened up parts of the woodlands to act as a laboratory for junior and senior high-school students for schools around the park, which is really wonderful. And, of course, just introducing these young people to nature, to observation of nature, right in their backyard -- and they're pretty amazed. And, of course, introducing nature recreation to our families and youngsters that live in the communities. I just want to end with one quote. We don't have everything solved in our woodlands -- we've got a lot to do. We'll never have a pristine place. But we can't do it alone. And here is my final thought for you, and it's something that we're going to follow in the future, and this is going to be the base of our stewardship program: "We protect what we love, we love what we know, we know what we learn."

Francesca Griffo:

I'll make time for a question or two if they're out there. Yes, no? Yes.

Audience Question:

Are there any patches of forest in Central Park that are original forest?

Marianne Cramer:

No, there's not. We know a little bit more about the land previous to the park's construction than we did about ten years ago. Most of the writing, when the park was being constructed, called it, you know, squatter shacks, and boulders and swamps, and it was just terrible. But, indeed, we found an 1857 plant survey that was done by a couple of horticulturists before the park was built, and it does show that there was at least a secondary-succession forest there at the time. Thousands of oaks, many different species -- things that we haven't seen, we haven't even brought in, you know, from nurseries to plant -- were actually there. So that there was something there. And, also, in some of Olmsted's writings, he does talk about copses and small areas of forest that he wanted to keep and then enhance. You know, it's a very interesting study when you go back. Now, think of this: The forest that we have out there -- or the urban forest, whatever you want to call it -- is the most mature it's ever been since the Revolution.

Francesca Griffo:

Another quick question? Yes.

Audience Question:

Can you tell us, briefly, how you designed and planted the meadow?

Marianne Cramer:

It was done by our people in the field, the woodlands crew. They actually went to a workshop. There's a workshop that happens in Miller's Ville every year, which deals with native plants. And they got a lot of their answers there; that's how they began to choose the plants. Also, they used our natural resources group in the Parks Department, because they have professionals on the staff -- scientists that were able to help us identify the plants that we should be planting here. And the design of it -- it really didn't have a planting plan, it had a planting list. That's all I can tell you.

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