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Council member acknowledges understaffing in natural areas

1:57:34

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77 sec

Council Member Shekar Krishnan acknowledges the testimony about the importance of natural areas funding and expresses concern about understaffing for natural area care and fire prevention. He emphasizes that the current staffing levels are inadequate for managing the city's natural areas effectively.

Krishnan agrees that the city is far from adequately staffed to care for natural areas
He highlights the need for better staffing to protect against fires and for general care
The council member acknowledges that the understaffing issue goes beyond just funding

Shekar Krishnan

1:57:34

thanks so much for your testimony, Emily.

1:57:35

You know, and just on that point too, I mean, of course, your testimony, I think, was very strong about the importance of the natural areas funding, but it has to be the case that we are far from adequately staffed to care for our natural areas, whether it's to protect from fires that are out of our control, but that we can do a lot to protect and and prevent as much as possible.

1:57:53

And to care for them in general, it has to be the case that we are deeply understaffed in general, right, apart from the funding piece of this.

Emily Walker

1:58:00

That's correct.

1:58:00

And if, I might add the forest management framework for New York City, which was referenced by our colleagues at NYC Parks, the Natural Areas Conservancy helped co create that plan, a number of years ago.

1:58:11

If you refer to the management framework itself, you'll see that we're actually far behind the ideal level of staffing and funding that we should have if we were to be following the spirit of that management framework, which again was developed very thoughtfully and intentionally with our colleagues at Environment and Planning at Parks.

1:58:27

We just have not seen sufficient baseline funding, any baseline funding to speak of for NRG.

1:58:34

You heard that they have 60 full time staff for 14,000 acres of wetlands, forests, and marshlands.

1:58:39

It's just not sufficient to meet the need, and it's a third of our park system.

1:58:43

So, we really hope we can work with you all this year to really ensure that we're getting, a more sufficient level of staffing for this division.

1:58:50

Thank you so much.

Shekar Krishnan

1:58:51

6 a staff of 60 for 14,000 acres is is is ridiculous.

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Testimony by Emily Walker, Senior Manager of External Affairs at Natural Areas Conservancy

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Council member inquires about ideal staffing levels for natural areas