The organizers of an Atlanta mayoral candidate forum on green space Thursday night had to move their event to a bigger auditorium — their first venue couldn’t hold everyone who wanted to know more about what candidates propose for the city’s trees, watersheds and parks.
This is the third column in a series about Atlanta’s trees
A groundswell of community leaders are doing all they can to make sure Joni Mitchell’s song “Big Yellow Taxi” doesn’t become Atlanta’s reality.
The song’s chorus feels all too familiar:
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Atlanta is uniquely positioned as a city in a forest, and there is a movement afoot to make sure it stays that way.
This is second in a multi-part series about Atlanta’s tree canopy.
We have always described Atlanta as a city in a forest.
Amazingly, it is true. Our old growth forests are among our most special treasures in metro Atlanta.
Joan Maloof, founder of the Maryland-based Old Growth Forest Network, is an author who has written several books about the environment including her latest: “Nature’s Temples: The Complex World of Old Growth Forests.”
Hundreds and hundreds of trees will be cut down in the Peachtree Hills community as a result of two developments currently being proposed.
Ashton Woods – an ironic name for the developer – is planning to clear cut a 4-acre parcel next to Peachtree Hills Park – removing a total of 148 trees.
For too long, growth in the Atlanta region has translated to the clear-cutting of mature trees – undisputedly one of our greatest natural assets in Georgia.
It happened again in early February.
Several groves of mature oaks and magnolias in front of Piedmont Atlanta Hospital on Peachtree Road were cut down to make way for the new Piedmont Atlanta Hospital Tower.
The concept of the City of Atlanta doubling or tripling its population in the next 30 years may sound overwhelming.
Where are we going to put all these people? And will we need to sacrifice our beautiful tree canopy, our treasured neighborhoods and our quality of life?
By Guest Columnist KATHERYN KOLB, director of EcoAddendum, which raises awareness of Georgia’s natural environment
The greater metropolitan area of Atlanta was predominantly old growth forest less than 20 decades ago. For those of us who have lived a few decades, this seems perhaps not such a long time. For trees and forests and ecosystems, whose maturity is measured in centuries rather than decades, it is but the blink of an eye.
