Rapid Rewilding / Meadow Restoration

From vacant lot to restored meadow, this rapid rewilding project in Hyde Park was a great success that brought ecological function to a formerly inert space. First, we spread compost over the 0.3 acre planting area in order to create a rich soil layer for the plants to come. Then, we installed a straw wattle border around the area in order to control any future erosion. Lastly, we spread a diverse mix of native herbaceous species that included little bluestem, switchgrass, brown eyed susan, yellow coneflower, annual rye, and mammoth red clover. The clover does the important work of stabilizing and enriching the soil via rapid spread and nitrogen fixation. Then, the wildflowers can emerge in a brilliant display. We hope that our project will serve as a demonstration of an affordable and easy method for revitalizing empty urban spaces with functioning ecological habitats. At only $0.50 per square foot, restoration projects like this one could (un)pave the way to greener communities.

Check back here again in a year or two for updated photographs of the project.

Lower Mianus River Park: Ecological Master Plan

The Mianus River Park is a beautiful 400-acre recreational treasure in Stamford, Connecticut. The rolling Mianus River threads through the middle of the park, full of wildlife, dense forest, and colonial-era stone walls. In this highly developed area of Connecticut, the Mianus River Park has become a pedestrian refuge and overuse has caused significant damage. Because of increasing ecological strain and degradation of the park, the City of Stamford, in tandem with Trout Unlimited, turned to us for an Ecological Master Plan (conducted in 2012) to restore the environmental health of this valuable natural preserve. After a year of analysis, we created a long-term Ecological Master Plan that integrates human use of the park with regenerative and sustainable ecological practices.

Forest: The Mianus River Park forests are almost entirely deciduous, comprised of trees that fall within the same age range and a limited number of species. Over time, this has created a homogeneous environment in which trees form a dense, single canopy that blocks sunlight and hinders soil regeneration. An ecologically healthy forest needs a mid-level canopy to successfully support native plants and animals. Human and dog traffic, and deer grazing have also added to the severe degradation of forested areas resulting in a lack of plant regeneration. We recommended both tree thinning and new plantings to break up the upper canopy and diversify species, as well as soil regeneration to restore the forests. Native plants are the best solution for creating habitats that help native wildlife thrive. Plants should also be selected based on soil type, shade, and available moisture. We also strongly recommended using fences in highly vulnerable areas and around new plantings since the park is so heavily used.

River: The Mianus River is central to the park’s popularity. It serves as both a recreational fishery and a source of municipal water. Explosive visitation growth to the park and its river, especially for fly fishing, has taken a heavy toll on the river’s banks. Erosion along the shoreline has caused deep sections of the river to fill with sediment from the riverbanks. Important ground-level plant life is also absent because of excessive foot traffic. Shoreline stabilization is vital to restoring the riverbanks and will stop the rapid erosion and buildup of sediment in the river channel. We recommended putting in place a combination of the following river stabilization tools and systems: weirs, j-hooks, conifer revetment, large stones and boulders, bioengineering, fringe wetland, and flood banks. A robust native plant community along the banks would provide important food sources to aquatic species, moderate temperature, and reduce erosion during floods. The river’s edge should be replanted, protected from foot traffic, and visitor access points should be formally established to restore shorelines, which ultimately restores the river and ecosystem as a whole.

Trails: The popularity of the Mianus River Park has surged over the last decade. With land being used for hiking, fishing, dog walking and mountain biking, heavy visitation has caused soil compaction, eroded shorelines, and damaged hiking trails. We determined there were many redundant and unofficial trails created by hikers and bikers, and that the excessive amount of trail in the lower section of the park could not sustain healthy ecosystems. It was therefore recommended that 50 percent of existing trails be shut down for full restoration of native habitats. In wet areas, especially along river trails, we proposed elevated walkways to protect plant life and reduce erosion.

Design Complete on our Catskill Bioengineering Project

When Hurricane Irene swept through the Northeast in 2011, it caused significant damage to Bushkill Creek, one of the few streams that feed directly into the Ashokan Reservoir in the Catskills. River banks were torn apart and the resulting erosion caused tainted water downstream. One Nature was invited to design a plan for restoring a severely impacted section of Bushkill Creek and the client, Ulster County, agreed to a state-of-the-art bioengineered design to restore a 6-acre section of river and banks. The Bushkill Creek Restoration Project will be completed in the fall of 2016.

Bioengineering—integrating nature into the landscape restoration design—is fast becoming a popular solution for regeneration because the methods are ecologically sound and result in long-lasting revitalization. Designs that are purely engineered, using only non-living materials, are strong at the time of completion but tend to fall apart over time. Bioengineered designs use living material and with time, a bioengineered system gains strength and lasting stability as plant roots take hold and integrate with structural supports. In fact, an engineered design was put in place shortly after Hurricane Irene and subsequently failed.

The first stage of the Bushkill Creek project will be to rebuild and fill in the left bank with soil since much of it was swept away by storm damage and erosion. Trench packing follows—a method of filling small holes in the contour of a stream bank with live branch cuttings and compacted soil to encourage plant growth and stop erosion. Once the soil is shaped, sloped, and trench packed, live stakes and live fascines will be inserted, both of which are instrumental to preventing further river bank erosion in bioengineered design. Live stakes are native, live woody cuttings with the branches trimmed. They soon grow a root mat that stabilizes the earth bed by binding soil particles together. These live stakes, once flourishing, also enhance the beauty of the site and provide a habitat for wildlife. Live fascines are bundles of live brushwood that provide immediate erosion protection. The fascines, which take hold quickly, will be planted parallel to the waterway on both sides of the stream and close to the water’s edge.

Image Credit: Hudson Land Design

The plant species selected for live cuttings are all native plants and trees thriving in the surrounding Ashokan watershed, including willow, dogwood, sycamore, alder, winterberry holly, and meadowsweet, among several others. Once the earthwork is completed and the trench pack, live stake, and fascine installations are in place, the site will be thickly seeded with a custom-designed mix of aggressive native plants precisely chosen for the Bushkill Creek environment. In addition to several species of grasses and ferns, wildflowers such as jack-in-the-pulpit, marigold, milkweed, rose mallow, bee-balm, monkeyflower, and aster will be integral to the mix. Within a few months, erosion will cease at the Bushkill Creek site, water quality will be restored, and the area will be growing its way back to a healthy, stable, and sustainable ecosystem.

One Nature is now a Certified B Corporation!

What is a B Corp?

We are proud to announce our official B Corp status! This is something we are very proud of at One Nature and demonstrates to our clients and vendors our commitment to a better world.

B Corps are to business like Fair Trade is to Coffee or LEED is to buildings. Just like many other progressive companies (Etsy, Patagonia, Ben & Jerry's, Seventh Generation, ...) our company is designed to maximize more than just profits. And now that we have gone through the B Corp certification process these values have been solidified within our corporate operating agreement. 

“The B Corp movement is one of the most important of our lifetime, built on the simple fact that business impacts and serves more than just shareholders—it has an equal responsibility to the community and to the planet.”

— Rose Marcario, CEO of Patagonia

“B Lab is a nonprofit organization that serves a global movement of people using business as a force for good. Its vision is that one day all companies compete not only to be the best in the world, but the Best for the World® and as a result society will enjoy a more shared and durable prosperity. B Lab drives this systemic change by [...]building a global community of Certified B CorporationsTM who meet the highest standards of verified, overall social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability, and aspire to use the power of markets to solve social and environmental problems.”

— B Lab

What does this mean for One Nature?

1. We were awarded high scores across the board in an in-depth assessment of important measures of ethics in business such as locality, diversity, and commitment to environmental protection.  Our overall score was twice the median score for B Impact assessments.

2. This opportunity to crunch the numbers and measure our success in these areas has not only highlighted our strong suits, but also areas where we can improve.  We appreciate the insight and embrace the challenge.  This means our clients and supporters can look forward not only to our continued commitment to core values, but a constant effort towards further transparency, diversity, locality, and environmentalism.

3. Our participation in the B Corp program means you can look forward to annual reports such as this one that quantify our exciting environmental and social impacts.

4. We are listed in B Corp's official directory of B Corp businesses! Check out our score here:

Special thanks to B Lab for making this possible.