The 100th Anniversary meeting of the Ecological Society of
America was held in Baltimore this year.
Some 4,600 members of the society gathered to share scientific insights,
hold workshops on better connecting the science to the larger world, and
promoting the diversity of its own community. In addition there were field trips to both
urban and non-urban sites, and a celebration at the Union Craft Brewery.
Many attendees remarked to me that urban ecological science
seemed to be particularly well
represented at the meeting. An news article
in Nature (http://www.nature.com/news/ecologists-embrace-their-urban-side-1.18237)
brought several of these impressions together.
The article estimates that some 10% of the activities and presentations
at the meeting had something to do with urban ecology. This is a far cry from the early days of BES
when there were but one or two presentations, and very often they were isolated
in the last few hours of the meeting, after the numbers of attendees had begun
to dwindle. Notable was a well attended
symposium on the first afternoon of the meeting which highlighted Baltimore and
other urban ecological research.
Another notable role of urban perspectives was the ecological
urban design project led by Alex Felson of Yale's Schools of Architecture and
of Forestry and Environmental Studies. The
Society's Earth Stewardship Initiative provided a venue for this series of
workshops, design charettes, and studios involving students from several
architecture schools along with Baltimore secondary school students. Several communities and the city Office of
Sustainability had suggested opportunities for ecological urban design and
these were the focus of creative, socially, and ecologically well founded
designs that emerged during the week. The
fruits of these efforts were shared with the city and communities toward the
end of the week.
Another jewel in the urban crown at the ESA meeting was the
presentation by Beth Strommen, Director of the Baltimore City Office of
Sustainability. At a lunch honoring the
members of the Society's Rapid Response Team, Beth described the city's
sustainability plan, initiated in 2009, and subsequent specific projects and
milestones that she and her colleagues have been working on in close
collaboration with other city agencies, communities, and environmental
non-governmental organizations. The
climate action plan, the forest canopy plan, the urban agriculture initiative,
and the disaster preparedness plans are an impressive suite of activities aimed
at improving Baltimore's environment and the well being of its residence. The
team left the lunch convinced that Baltimore is in fact one of the nations most
successful sustainably oriented cities.
All of these activities clearly symbolize the position of
urban ecology as a component of the discipline's mainstream in the United
States. It was very fitting that this
acknowledgement coincided with the arrival of ESA in Baltimore.
