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The Nature Principle in your neighborhood: Is there a Button Park in your future?
R
emember the special place in nature that you had as a child—that wooded lot at the end of the cul de sac, that ravine behind your housing tract? What if adults had cared just as much about that special place as you did, when you were a child? Here’s an idea (described in my new book, THE NATURE PRINCIPLE), whose time may be coming: the creation of "nearby-nature trusts.” Land trust organizations could develop and distribute tool kits, and perhaps offer consulting services, to show how neighborhood residents could band together to protect those small green parcels of nearby nature. What might these little parcels be called? How about ” button parks?”
When the Trust for Public Land (TPL), working with the Colorado Health Foundation, brought together groups concerned about the disconnect of children from nature, TPL leaders and I brainstormed on the future of land trusts in tough economic times. Considering this approach, one of TPL’s leaders suggested that neighborhood leaders might also identify abandoned houses, buy them, raze them, and turn them into natural parkland or community gardens. ” We really do have to think about creating nature, not just preserving it,” he said.
As with family nature clubs and other ways to restore our lives, the central organizing principle of nearby-nature trusts would be: do it yourself, do it now —- with a little help and information from friends who know about land trusts. A larger pattern could emerge: As neighborhoods work to preserve or create parcels of nearby nature, they could symbolically join these special places to similar ones throughout a city; such an effort could be a new way to build parkland across an urban region — a kind of decentral park.
Why call these nearby-nature trusts "button parks"? “Pocket park” is the term for small parks created by governments or developers; button parks — well, people can sew those on themselves. What if people had access to free tool kits which helped people create their own ” button parks” connected to the threads of a region's trail system? These button parks wouldn’t need to be literally connected to the trail, but would serve as small extensions.
Barriers would exist, among them the fear of liability. But precedents do exist around the country. When I spoke in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the director of ACRES Land Trust suggested one approach. ACRES has protected natural habitats throughout northeast Indiana, southern Michigan and northwest Ohio. Jason Kissel, executive director of ACRES, suggested that button parks could be created by neighborhood associations, and that, at least in Indiana, public use of private land left in its natural state poses less danger of future litigation than land that has been ” improved.”
By going through the process of creating button parks, people would learn about the growing importance of the land trust movement. Potentially, figuring this out could dramatically increase the amount of protected nearby nature. The residents of neighborhoods would be able to take pride in their protection of those little special places, places too small for government or large conservancies to protect, but large in the hearts of children and their families.
For more on button parks and other ways to restore our lives through nature, please read The Nature Principle.
A version of this blog was originally published on the Children & Nature Network website. Richard Louv is founding director of C&NN.
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Comments
As adults we tend to think of preservation and conservation in grand terms, yet to a child a mud puddle can seem worth saving. Even as a teenager, I was devestated when my fallen “mother tree” as I called it was finally removed from the gully where I retreated to.
The coordination of “button parks” as Louv suggests would be a great way to allow pockets of preservation and therefore education in neighborhoods. Working with local Land Trusts, neighborhood associations and even local governments to encourage new developments to include such special places could be a win-win for all but particularly our next generation!
My kids really love container gardening and i’m a real fan, i’d like to think that one day our society will move back to sustainable food growth instead of the current mass market farming which is really destructive for the environment.
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I agree to mike. Well, moving back to sustainable food growth instead of mass market farming that is very destructive for the environment must be implemented by everybody. I hope mike is going to expand his idea on moving back to sustainable food growth. Preserve. Nice article.
Indeed, “mass market farming” had done serious great damage with the environment all over the world. However, this can’t be helped for the sole reason that people need to eat and earn. A sad truth but we are all at fault for such reason.
Children are not getting closer to the nature as we did when we were children. At my childhood, fishing and playing with mud were my hobbies. But my children have never gone for fishing or something even though I asked them to come with me for fishing. They like playing in theme parks and they often play with the Little Rock Patio Furniture. I think button parks can definitely make the children get familiar to nature. I really liked the idea of TPL and I hope it can definitely do something in bringing children back to nature.
The “button park†concept is an interesting idea because in metropolitian areas where a majority of people live in apartments it is difficult for children to readily access “their own small parcel of nature.†It would be wonderful if there was a movement that encouraged “roof top gardensâ€. What a great and fun way for children to experience nature and also learn farming. I also like the idea of people buying abandoned buildings and turning them into community gardens. This not only would benefit nature but also society since most areas with abandoned buildings also have higher crime rates. I wonder if there is a study that shows a correlation between areas with community gardens and crime rates vs. abandoned buildings and crime rates. Cities could potentially save a lot of money by reducing crime, simply by introducing a community garden.
I prefer separating nature with urban life.
Hey Richard, great article. I agree with everyone here that children now are not very in-tune with nature as we once were. The addition of these button parks will allow children to observe nature’s beauty and will allow adults to relive that special moment. Who knows, maybe someone will even implement the “button park” in a literal sense.
Joseph Nguyen,
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