By Hannah E. Jones, Park Pride’s Marketing & Communications Manager
Happy Earth Month, Atlanta! (Although in our eyes, every month is Earth Month!) April is a great time to get outside — with the trees beginning to leaf out, flowers blooming in abundance and birds singing their songs.
Not only is this an ideal time to be outdoors, but Earth Month is also an opportunity to reflect on the importance of investing in local parks and greenspaces.
A great city is determined by the character of its public spaces, and high-quality parks and greenspaces are essential for a happy, healthy community. An excellent park system allows folks to have places to gather, play, reenergize, reflect on our history and participate in creating a shared future.
On Saturday, April 20, about 60 volunteers put in some elbow grease at Herbert Greene Nature Preserve for our Earth Day Volunteer Project. This greenspace, located just outside I-285, features boulder outcrops, wetlands and a stretch of the Utoy Creek.
Volunteers worked together to pick up litter, including tires and other trash and cleared out wisteria, which is one of Atlanta’s most prevalent invasive plants.
Later this month, there’s a great opportunity to become better acquainted with the local flora and fauna — the City Nature Challenge! This is an international effort, organized locally by the Fernbank Museum with Park Pride as a partner, to photograph and record animals and plants throughout our cities.
The four-day challenge — from April 26 to 29 — is free and open to everyone. Simply snap a photo of the plants and critters that you see in your backyard, on a walk or in a park, and upload the photos into the iNaturalist app. This is an opportunity to learn more about our local ecosystems while also supporting research surrounding biodiversity and conservation!
Efforts like these emphasize the importance of protecting and maintaining Atlanta’s natural areas which earned us the nickname the “city in the forest.”
Since 2020, the City of Atlanta has acquired a substantial amount of new parkland — 580 acres to be exact — with 80% of that land being forested parkland or part of a nature preserve, thanks in part to funding provided by the Tree Trust Fund. To better steward these natural spaces, the Park Pride team is advocating for an expanded natural areas team at the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) led by a Director of Natural Resources.
Such a shift in structure could help bolster the good work already occurring to support natural resource management at both DPR and the Department of Watershed Management. Expect to see movement in this area following the adoption of the FY 2025 budget in June.
Atlanta is a group project, and Park Pride is proud to support DPR as we strive for a world-class park system!
This Earth Month, join folks around the world who are finding ways to celebrate and steward this beautiful earth that we call home. Atlanta has over 400 parks, let’s visit one!
