The revitalization of the natural environment in urban areas ranging from the City of New Haven to sites in Europe and South Africa will be explored in a semester-long series of seminars at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies F&ES .
"Restoration or Creation: Designing New Landscapes in Old Cities," which is also being offered as a for-credit course for students, will bring to campus leaders in the rapidly evolving field of the revitalization of urban natural systems, according to Aimlee Laderman, a limnologist who is a research affiliate and lecturer in wetland ecology and restoration at F&ES, and Diana Balmori, a landscape architect and critic in landscape history at the School of Architecture and F&ES. The two women are the founders and coordinators of the lecture series, which is the first on the East coast to be cosponsored by the New Academy of the Society for Environmental Restoration and is designed to be of particular interest to environmental organizations and government agencies, they say.
"The talks will be of value to those working in all aspects of urban environmental restoration, design and management: in city woodland, wetland, waterway, shoreline and community garden," says Ms. Laderman, who is also director of the Swamp Research Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
While urban sites in such diverse places as California, New York and Georgia will be examined, the lecture series will focus particular attention on policies, problems and solutions relevant to New Haven, according to Ms. Laderman and Ms. Balmori, who is also principal of the landscape design firm Balmori Associates.
The first lecture in the series, "Restoration Ecology: The Wave of the Future," will be presented on Wednesday, Jan. 15, by the world renowned ecologist William Niering. A wetland limnologist and author, Mr. Niering also serves as editor-in-chief of the periodical Restoration Ecology and as the Allyn Professor of Botany and research director at the Connecticut College Arboretum. This talk is free and open to the public.
The topics for the other lectures follow. All of the talks will take place on Wednesdays, 11:30 a.m.-2:20 p.m., in Bowers Auditorium, Sage Hall, 205 Prospect St., unless otherwise noted. Participants may bring brown-bag lunches.
Jan. 22 -- "The Fairfield Story: Saltmarshes, Industrial Sumps and Public Trust Lands," by Thomas Steinke, inventor of self- regulating tidegates and director of the Wetlands Agency in Fairfield, Connecticut. The lecture will be in the Fairfield Town Hall and will be complemented by a field trip and demonstration.
Jan. 29 -- "Community Restoration Planning: Challenges and Solutions in San Diego," by John Rieger, past president of the Society for Environmental Restoration and chief of the Environmental Stewardship Branch of the California Department of Transportation in San Diego.
Feb. 5 -- "Rehabilitating New York City's Forests," by Anthony Emmerich of the New York City Parks Foundation.
Feb. 12 -- "Bioengineering for Urban Streambanks," by Wendy Goldsmith, bioengineer for Bestmann Green, Bioengineering Group in Salem, Massachusetts.
Feb. 19 -- "Metro-Atlanta's Relation to the Appalachicola- Chattahoochee-Flint Watershed," by Steve Leitman, an environmental advocate in Quincy, Florida. The lecture will be followed by a working session titled "The Shared Vision Model as a Management Tool."
Feb. 26 -- "Permanent Protection? The Branford Supply Ponds Case," by Peter Cooper, environmental lawyer, general counsel to the Connecticut Fund for the Environment and cofounder of the Environmental Law Clinic at the Yale Law School, with F. Herbert Bormann, the Oastler Professor Emeritus of Forest Ecology and director of eosystem research at the School of Forestry, and Ms. Balmori.
March 26 -- "An Essential Tension: The Culture of Nature in the City," by William R. Jordan, founding editor and editor-in-chief of Restoration and Management Notes, University of Wisconsin Arboretum in Madison, Wisconsin.
April 2 -- "History of New Haven; How the City is Laid Out; What Was Here Before the City: Ecology of New Haven; Infrastructure of 3 Rivers: Mill, West, and Quinnipiac," by Charles L. Remington, professor emeritus of biology and lecturer at F&ES, and other speakers.
April 9 -- "Urbanization of Riparian Landscapes: Case Studies in the San Francisco Bay Area," by Pamela Muick, executive director of the Open Space Foundation in Solano County, California, and coeditor of "The Ecological City."
Field trips to local sites will be taken March 5 and April 16. Student reports will be presented April 23.
Community participants are welcome to attend the lecture series for a subscription fee of $100 per person. A limited number of scholarships are available. There is no charge for Yale faculty. Yale students may register for the course F&ES 547 for 1 to 3 credits. For more information, call Ms. Laderman at 497-8085 or 432-3335.