REWILDING HOUSTON
City should lead in creating equilibrium between people, animals, habitat
Houston may be the perfect city to lead an environmental revolution in America.
Rewilding is an approach to environmental design that is sweeping the world. For more than 10 years, Rewilding Europe has been a continental program to heighten biodiversity. REWILD Britain is a national campaign that is led by a director for rewilding who reports to the prime minister. In 2013, the Republic of Ireland began an initiative to rewild their national rivers, and Dublin announced last March plans to rewild Phoenix Park, founded in 1785 and still the largest urban park in Europe.
At its core, rewilding is an attempt to establish equilibrium between human activity, the needs of animal species, and habitat. Rewilding is not only a new method for continental landscapes. It can apply to small urban spaces, a weekend landscape project for a yard, or virtually any landscape.
And yet America is falling behind. Maybe Houston can change that. Two inseparable characteristics of Houston’s geography make it ideal for rewilding. It is a textbook demonstration of a low-density megacity awash with open space, bayous and water-saturated landscapes that are
already teaming with wildlife. Alligators ply the shallows, bobcats traverse the watersheds, nesting hawks and raptors all exist within the city limits, because, like it or not, Houston is an urban pattern that settled approximately 6.5 million individuals into a metropolitan area of 6,439,680 acres — an average human density of one person per acre — giving the wildlife an abundance of space to take hold.
A rewilding project begins by constructing a list of plant and nonhuman species that are appropriate for a site or landscape. Not all the potential species are appropriate or safe. Next, just as architects do with a building designed for people, the introduction of nonhuman species generates relationships and requirements. Last, human activity is
mapped into the rewilding, all in the same design process, so human and nonhuman life are in equilibrium.
For example, Phoenix Park in Dublin was originally a royal hunting park and is still home to several herds of deer. Current plans, which include upgrading existing facilities, are to expand the “carefully curated” natural areas to be a nature resource for an increasing dense city. They are building on the natural resources they already have, which is the key to successfully rewilding any city or project, regardless of its size.
Any rewilded area will have to begin building on its own ecological resources. What was the original landscape? What species are already present with the native plants and ecology that could support and enlarge diversity?
There is no need to routinely mow or irrigate every square foot of easements, rights-of-way and parks . Instead, broad easements and selected areas of parks can be exchanged for a rewilded program and plant strategy that saves water, reduces maintenance and also cleans the water and air. The long and resilient root systems of native plants dissipate and reduce flooding. Homeowners can even reduce their lawn area and plant to attract butterflies, moths, and mockingbirds.
As I talk urbanism and rewilding across the country, I find that people are genuinely surprised when they hear that it can also save a lot of money. It can also help stormwater management and flooding, and of course, it is the most reliable method to reconstruct biodiversity driven out by agriculture, injudicious development and rapidly expanding populations. I think that the “re” of “rewild” misleads people that it is a romance for nature, or a fantasy to return civilization to the Bronze Age.
China is spending $3.2 billion to rewild the tree-covered areas interspersed throughout Beijing. The project will help clean its life-threatening air pollution, and in studying it I was delighted to discover a 2001 economic study by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department that unmasked a significant world culture of wildlife enthusiasts. Every year over a million people travel to Texas to observe wildlife. Not to hunt it. Just to observe.
More recently, in 2011, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service analysis showed that, nationwide, 45 million birdwatchers spend $41 billion on trips and equipment, plus an extra $15 billion on travel. Bottom line: Nature is big business in America, and all over the world.
That’s certainly true in Houston. The city is at the terminus of the Central Migratory Flyway and parts of the Texas Coast are so coveted for their wildlife treasures, they have become known as “The World Birding Center.” When I asked an avid birder why no city has a convention and hospitality program for them, she laughed. “We know who we are. The world thinks we’re a couple of ‘crazies’ running around with binoculars.”
My private practice developed the Airfield Falls Conservation Park in Fort Worth, which since its completion in 2017 has attracted clouds of pollinators, migratory songbirds, flocks of wild turkeys and, yes, bobcats. We’ve also distributed hundreds of flyers for how families can make a “pocket prairie” in a backyard.
What made me suddenly think that Houston is a great city to launch the American rewilding project happened during the Apollo 11 anniversary celebrations. “I wish there was another project that could unite our country and the world, like Apollo did,” Flight Director Gene Kranz shared in an interview. Perhaps the next unifying project isn’t to leave the Earth but to save it, and rewilding is part of that.
But Houston, you’ll have to get moving. The Chicago “WILD Mile” is turning their “wasted” river into a wildlife park.With so much happening in Europe, other U.S. cities are likely to follow.
Houston, you are the perfect city to lead the way. Show Dallas how to do something that Chicago already has the will to do.