TESTIMONY
Julie Jenkins, Founder of Stewards of Ewen Park, on the Importance of Funding the NYC Parks Department to Maintain Urban Forests and Green Spaces
7:46:01
·
123 sec
Jenkins argues that the NYC Parks Department needs sufficient funding to protect and maintain the city's urban forests and green spaces, which provide critical benefits like mitigating heat and flooding.
- She represents the Stewards of Ewen Park, a group that maintains Ewen Park in the Bronx
- Ewen Park provides a respite from pollution and heat for the Kingsbridge neighborhood
- Without adequate Parks funding, volunteer groups cannot properly care for green spaces
- Trees cool urban areas, mitigating the heat island effect as temperatures rise
- City plans like PlanNYC highlight the importance of urban forests for cooling and quality of life
Julie Jenkins
7:46:01
Hi.
7:46:02
My name is Julie Jenkins, and I'm here as a resident of the Bronx.
7:46:06
The founder of the stewards of you and Parkin is a proud member the forest for all coalition.
7:46:11
Thank you, committee chair, Brennan, and parts chair, Christian, and and the committee members for the opportunity to test by today.
7:46:17
I live in King's Bridge in the Bronx.
7:46:19
My neighborhood is an environmental justice area.
7:46:21
It's one of the lowest tree canopy covers in the city and has a heat index of 4 out of 5 with 5 being the worst.
7:46:28
Maintain inventories.
7:46:29
We do have this very important in my neighborhood, and we also need a lot more trees.
7:46:34
Ewan Park is an e daker park adjacent to Kingsbridge.
7:46:37
The community relies on it as a respite from pollution.
7:46:40
The heat retained by buildings with little to no shade filled trees.
7:46:44
Ewan Park has hundreds of trees, a playground, a basketball court picnic fields, and already not enough parks.
7:46:49
Operations step to maintain it properly.
7:46:51
In less than 3 years, we've pulled hundreds of bags of trash out of the park.
7:46:55
We've painted benches.
7:46:56
We've cured invasive vines that make the park feel unsafe or unwelcoming.
7:46:59
These are things parks does not have sufficient resources to attend to.
7:47:04
Trees provide our oxygen, clean our air, velocity, mitigate the potential damage from increased flooding that New York City will see in the coming years and decades.
7:47:12
The parts department is where you can find the expertise dedication and experience necessary to protect our urban forests, which is critical public infrastructure.
7:47:21
This division should be generously funded.
7:47:23
There's data from the health department demonstrating that heat kills and temperatures are rising.
7:47:28
There's also significant data showing that trees cool.
7:47:30
This is not a difficult correlation to comprehend.
7:47:34
In Plan NYC, getting sustainability done, it explicitly ties our forested areas to improve quality of life.
7:47:41
The roadmap connects our urban force to cooling our built environment, which will protect New Yorkers from extreme heat.
7:47:47
LAN NYC also highlights stewards and volunteers as essential partners.
7:47:51
With these budget cuts, it seems that this administration thinks that volunteers will fill the gaps.
7:47:56
But without the dedicated and knowledgeable staff at Parks, there's little ways volunteers can do.
7:48:01
Partnership
Keisha Lewis
7:48:02
Thank you so much.
7:48:03
Your time has expired.
← Previous Chapter
Eric Goldstein, New York City Environment Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, on the Importance of Restoring Funding for Composting and Organic Waste Collection in New York City
Next Chapter →
Justin Green, Executive Director of Big Reuse, on NYC Community Composting Programs and Funding