“Thank you for inviting me to be a part of this exciting meeting. It is a meeting long overdue, but which holds great promise. Now, before I go any further, I want to tell you something I heard just the other day.

“A recent study showed that chefs prepare food that is 10% tastier if they can see the people who are going to eat it. 

“Think about that—just being able to see your audience, those who will eat your food, resulted in you making a better meal.

“How can that be? And even if it’s true, what does it have to do with this meeting? Good questions, and here is my attempt at an answer.

 “Seeing the person for whom you are doing the work results in an improved outcome because seeing someone is proxy for establishing a relationship with someone. In other words, ‘seeing’ someone is the beginning of ‘caring’ about someone, and if you care about someone, you’ll do a better job for them.

“Now, the relationship of that study to this group is this: because we in the environmental movement at times do not ‘see’ urban people—at least up until now—we not only do not perform 10% better, we simply do not perform at all.

“But if we begin to see them, I mean really see them, then perhaps we can together prepare a meal that really does taste better.

“There is something really powerful there, and I hope you will give it some thought when you get home.

“Now, my own story about how I first came to see urban people in the context of conservation starts a decade ago in a place called Atlanta.

“We were doing some really exciting work just outside of the city of Atlanta in a place called Lithonia, a predominantly African-American community that sits adjacent to some incredible open space called Arabia Mountain. Our work consisted of acquiring the land for this magnificent state park and working with the community to help them derive economic benefit from it.

“At the conclusion of a major phase of this work, we decided to hold one of our national board meetings at the Lithonia Women’s Club, a small, historic building we had acquired and were transferring to a local community organization. Now, at the time, our chairman was an extraordinary man named Charles Jordan, the longtime head of Parks and Recreation for the City of Portland, Oregon. Charles, by the way, was the first African-American to chair a national environmental group, and when we held our meeting in the Lithonia Women’s Club, was the first African-American to chair any meeting in that building. In fact, no African-American had been allowed inside that building until we acquired it.

“It was a powerful moment, and we were celebrating having protected more than 3.5 million acres of land across the country. Suddenly, Charles asked: ‘What are we doing to prepare the next generation to inherit and be good stewards of all this land we are protecting?’

“Well, the short answer was…nothing. The fact is, that in spite of all the land we were setting aside, we simply did not ‘see’ the people Charles was talking about—the kids in urban areas who did not have parks, had never been to a park.

“And while we did not have a good answer at the time, by asking the question, Charles launched us on a path that leads directly to this podium here this morning.

“You see, the success of the Arabia Mountain project garnered at lot of attention, and soon after we were asked to come in and visit with the Arthur Blank Foundation—a major new philanthropy in Atlanta founded by Arthur Blank, one of the founders and the longtime CEO of The Home Depot. 

“Arthur wanted to know about the effect that Arabia Mountain was having on the underserved community of Lithonia and whether or not the presence of a park was changing the way the community thought about itself. And perhaps most importantly, whether access to the park was making a difference in the lives of the young people who lived nearby.

“Well, out of that first meeting emerged a multi-year plan for Atlanta. Our first action was to benchmark Atlanta against every other city of comparable size in terms of the number of parks per capita, the distance of parks from where people lived and whether or not the citizens of Atlanta could walk or take public transportation to a park. 

“The results were startling. Atlanta, the fastest growing human settlement in human history, was dead last on all these key metrics. Dead last.

“Arthur said that was unacceptable, and wanted to know what it would take to move Atlanta up from last to the median. And so our next step was to identify every undeveloped lot inside the city of Atlanta and draw up a preliminary map of where parks should be located to meet the requirements Arthur had set out in terms of accessibility and the number of parks per capita.

“And for the last ten years, we have been using that map—with the incredible support of the Arthur Blank Foundation and other leaders from the Mayor’s Office, from corporations headquartered in Atlanta, and finally from an amazing network of nonprofit organizations working in Atlanta—to prioritize critical undeveloped lots, buy them, and turn them into assets for the community.

“By far, the most exciting of all of these is the work we are doing in the Proctor Creek Watershed where we are creating the first park in the English Avenue neighborhood, one of the most underserved neighborhoods in the City. 

“This neighborhood faces some of the highest crime, vacancy and poverty rates in the City. It also faces numerous environmental justice concerns, including severe stormwater flooding and brownfields and industrial contamination. You name the social, economic, environmental issue, this neighborhood has it all.

“Interestingly, the construction of the new Atlanta Falcons Stadium, a major focus for the city, has created an opportunity to reinvest in this community in new ways. But we needed a way to get community leaders to buy in—to believe that something different, something good actually could happen.

“So, the next thing we did was to sponsor a trip for 7 community leaders to Wisconsin, to the City of Milwaukee, where we had been working for more than a decade to acquire land along the major rivers, creating a giant linear sponge that would absorb water during significant flooding events, thereby protecting Milwaukee. 

“We wanted the English Avenue folks to see what their neighborhood could look like, what kinds of benefits they could bring back to their community if we pursued a similar approach. 

“The turning point, I think, was when they were standing on a bridge spanning a river notorious for flooding. Looking downstream, they saw a concrete, channelized river with almost no vegetation, no trails, no amenities. In fact, a forbidding 15-foot high chain link fence on each side “protected” the neighborhoods from the river, viewed only as a source of flooding, contamination, and blight. 

“Then, they turned upstream and saw something completely different—a river restored to its natural flow, with lush vegetation, and a trail running along the river where kids were playing and people were walking their dogs. No fences—simply an open invitation to explore and enjoy a natural asset for the whole community.

“It was an incredible moment, and when we got back to Atlanta it was time to get busy.

“First, we acquired a series of empty lots, that ultimately will total an entire block. Next, with an army of partners and community members we cleaned up the stream and surrounding woods and constructed a multi-purpose park that can be replicated across the Proctor Creek Watershed. 

“It is an amazing transformation, for the watershed and for the community. It has become a Park with a Purpose—a rallying point for the community to tackle other tough issues and begin to look to the future with some hope and optimism.

 “And, in terms of sustaining this effort over time, the success we have had early on has attracted an amazing collection of partners, including neighborhood residents, the City of Atlanta, Park Pride, the Waterfall Foundation, U-Haul Corporation, West Atlanta Watershed Alliance, and the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper—partners that previously did not ‘see’ the English Avenue neighborhood or the potential for the green gem at Lindsay Street to help change a community and its residents.

“Now, there is a lot more of this program to go, but I would like to leave you with a few final thoughts.

“By the year 2050, 85% of all Americans will live in big cities—almost a complete reversal of what the country looked like one hundred years ago. And by the year 2042, the United States will, for the first time, be a majority minority country.

“These changes, fundamental and profound, are changing the face of this nation. We are becoming blacker, browner and more urban. And, at the same time, more and more disconnected from the lands and waters that sustain us.

“This is especially true among young people who increasingly are growing up in a world where nature simply doesn’t exist.  And young people who grow up without spending time in nature are much less likely to be strong champions of the environment when they reach voting age. Twenty or thirty years from now, we will have a generation of leaders in our public, private and nonprofits institutions who will be asked to make policy and budgetary decisions about forests and wetlands who have never seen a forest, or waded a stream, or simply gotten their hands dirty in a garden.

“Is there is a dullness in our young people today because they have lost the spark that comes from interacting with the world around them?

“Martin Luther King said that the success of any social movement depends on its ability to ‘show a world where people will want to go.’ 

“Lindsay Street Park is a place where people will want to go, and every city in America has places that need, that deserve a park with a purpose. 

“Think about it, New York City has over 47,000 vacant land parcels totaling thousands of acres. 

“For decades, these have been considered liabilities, to be fenced off, avoided. What a waste. Where is the vision, the creativity in that? 

“I prefer Agatha Christie’s outlook better.

“You see, she was married to one of the preeminent archaeologists of her time.  Once when she was asked what’s it like to be married to an archaeologist, she replied, ‘It’s wonderful!  The older I get, the more interested he is in me!’

“She was clever enough to see her age as an asset rather than a liability.  And we need to be clever enough to recognize that New York City with its 47,000 abandoned lots has an amazing asset just waiting to be deployed.

“This brings up a central point in any effort to reconnect children with nature.  As we become more of an urban nation, and as the demographics of our country continue to change, reconnecting children with nature will be less about bringing kids to nature, and more about bringing nature to the kids.

“For too long, we in the environmental movement have defined nature solely in terms of wildness, far away and pristine. And the result is that nature has become a foreign country that we get to visit only once in a while. That will never do. 

“Nature must be nearby and accessible. It must be returned to our day care centers, our schools and our communities. 

“Consider this, there are 20 million diabetics in this country today; there will be 40 million in 2015; and, if we don’t change course, 80 million in the year 2050! 

“Already, we spend $2 trillion each year on health care with 95% of that spent on direct medical service—and only 5% allocated to preventing disease and promoting health and a healthy lifestyle.

“The implications for the country are severe—from a health perspective, to the impact on local, state and national budgets, to corporate competitiveness, to the future of our magnificent land and water legacy. We need to rethink our approach to wellness and health—nature as the 1^st prescription rather than the last.

“We know that patients in rooms with tree views have shorter hospitalizations and that children with ADHD who have access to natural areas are calmer and require less medication. 

“And we know that the presence of trees outside apartment buildings in a public housing project in inner-city Chicago predicted better coping skills, less crime and less violence.

“And finally, we know that among children who play in paved over playgrounds, the leaders tend to be the most physically mature; while among children who play on green playgrounds, the leaders tend to be the most creative.

“Remember, these are the future leaders of our country. With all the complexity in the world today, from global warming, to free trade and immigration, to ethnic and religious intolerance, do we really believe we can lead based on strength alone?    

“All Americans care about these issues. They may come to the table for different reasons, but they want a seat at the table. And we need to set a place for them. Poor people, people of color, people with disabilities, and others who have the least access to natural settings, and who may need it the most. As a nation, we will be paid back many times over.

“My favorite lapel button says simply, ‘The meek are getting ready.’  Now I’m not sure if the meek will inherit the earth, but I am sure young people will. And we need to help them get ready.

“Thank you for all you are doing to make this ideal of urban restoration come to life. The people of English Avenue thank you. And I can assure you that soon, all Americans will thank you, too.”

About The Conservation Fund
At The Conservation Fund, we make conservation work for America. By creating solutions that make environmental and economic sense, we are redefining conservation to demonstrate its essential role in our future prosperity. Top-ranked for efficiency and effectiveness, we have worked in all 50 states to protect more than 7.5 million acres of land since 1985.