by Alex Marshall, Editor, Spotlight on The Region
H2O: Highlands to Ocean, by Tony Hiss and Christopher Meier, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, 2005.
To name something is to give it power. It's the first step in turning a vague concept into a useful tool, one that can be worked with, carried around, and applied.
Tony Hiss and Christopher Meier have given our region a new name and new tool. They define the enormous natural region that roughly corresponds to the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area by calling it H20: Highlands to Ocean in their book by the same name.
While the area around the New York/New Jersey Harbor and the rivers that flow into it is often looked at economically or environmentally, it's seldom been formally defined as an eco system that includes significant wildlife of both the human and non-human varieties. The authors conspire, successfully I think, to get skyscraper climbers and mountain climbers, café watchers and bird watchers, to see their beloved as part of the same whole. The huge natural environment, created as part of a glacier and mountain phenomena starting 200 million years ago, supports the hugely resilient manmade environment, which the authors point out has been changing and developing particularly quickly over the last 400 years.
"What we can also now see is that, over and above - and behind and beneath - all the changes that four centuries have brought to the area so far, the region by its very nature has its own tremendous staying power," says Hiss in the Introduction. "This inborn strength is the essence of the region, a national natural treasure, an extra dimension to daily life that we have lived in the middle of but never quite knew about."
Along with the power of a name, the book also shows the power of good writing. Reading about trees and birds and such can be slow going if one is not already a nature enthusiast. But the authors describe their subjects vividly, and continually put them in the context of the wider world around whatever they are describing. They doubtless draw on the skills of Hiss, author of numerous national books and a contributor to The New Yorker (as well as a co-author of RPA's Third Regional Plan).
The authors say the H2O region is composed of eight principal natural areas: the Highlands, New York Harbor and Raritan Bay, the Raritan River and its tributaries, the Passaic River, the glacial Lake Hackensack, the Palisades, the Hudson River, and Jamaica Bay. And how are these natural areas doing? The authors come up with a list of fourteen regional indicators, a quantifiable set of indexes that give us some idea of the region's overall health, which they then explore in distinct chapters.
These indicators are water quality, wetlands, droughts and floods, sturgeon, striped bass, harbor herons, peregrine falcons, the Highlands, Black Bears, bog turtles, sprawl, air quality, asthma, and global climate change. This list is important because it gives policy makers quantifiable markers that can be tracked. It puts the debate on more solid ground.
A natural follow-up to this book would be annual reports that state just how these fourteen regional indicators are faring. The indicators themselves could be tinkered with, because while the authors have done a good job getting started, they are obviously not the last word on the subject.
I could see taking the authors' concept of uniting the manmade and natural environment even further. It's significant that the authors include asthma rates under their list of indicators, because this is gauging the health of humans, not Peregrine falcons. How about including infant mortality and life expectancy for the H20 region, or obesity rates? Maybe the 15 or so million people could be viewed more centrally as part of the inhabitants that make up the H2O region.
As many have argued, the idea of a nature apart from humanity is largely dead, given climate change, proliferation of invasive species, and other global economic and environmental realities. It seems a productive challenge to start incorporating this holistic philosophy into more of our decision making. Protecting streams and lakes from development in the Catskills, for example, not only helps fish and other wildlife but also the health of someone drinking tap water on Third Avenue in Manhattan.
Given limited space and resources, there will always be conflicts between humans and the other species with whom we share our estuary. Westway supporters might grit their teeth to read in H2O about how the health of the striped bass that swim under abandoned piers off Manhattan derailed what could have created new habitat for an equally important species, people. But it's clear that H20 opens a door that others will walk through. It's an enormously important book because it gets us to see aspects of our environment that are as real as the Empire State Building but often not as visible because we haven't had someone point us in the right direction.
H2O: Highlands to Ocean, by Tony Hiss and Christopher Meier, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, 2005.
To name something is to give it power. It's the first step in turning a vague concept into a useful tool, one that can be worked with, carried around, and applied.
Tony Hiss and Christopher Meier have given our region a new name and new tool. They define the enormous natural region that roughly corresponds to the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area by calling it H20: Highlands to Ocean in their book by the same name.
While the area around the New York/New Jersey Harbor and the rivers that flow into it is often looked at economically or environmentally, it's seldom been formally defined as an eco system that includes significant wildlife of both the human and non-human varieties. The authors conspire, successfully I think, to get skyscraper climbers and mountain climbers, café watchers and bird watchers, to see their beloved as part of the same whole. The huge natural environment, created as part of a glacier and mountain phenomena starting 200 million years ago, supports the hugely resilient manmade environment, which the authors point out has been changing and developing particularly quickly over the last 400 years.
"What we can also now see is that, over and above - and behind and beneath - all the changes that four centuries have brought to the area so far, the region by its very nature has its own tremendous staying power," says Hiss in the Introduction. "This inborn strength is the essence of the region, a national natural treasure, an extra dimension to daily life that we have lived in the middle of but never quite knew about."
Along with the power of a name, the book also shows the power of good writing. Reading about trees and birds and such can be slow going if one is not already a nature enthusiast. But the authors describe their subjects vividly, and continually put them in the context of the wider world around whatever they are describing. They doubtless draw on the skills of Hiss, author of numerous national books and a contributor to The New Yorker (as well as a co-author of RPA's Third Regional Plan).
The authors say the H2O region is composed of eight principal natural areas: the Highlands, New York Harbor and Raritan Bay, the Raritan River and its tributaries, the Passaic River, the glacial Lake Hackensack, the Palisades, the Hudson River, and Jamaica Bay. And how are these natural areas doing? The authors come up with a list of fourteen regional indicators, a quantifiable set of indexes that give us some idea of the region's overall health, which they then explore in distinct chapters.
These indicators are water quality, wetlands, droughts and floods, sturgeon, striped bass, harbor herons, peregrine falcons, the Highlands, Black Bears, bog turtles, sprawl, air quality, asthma, and global climate change. This list is important because it gives policy makers quantifiable markers that can be tracked. It puts the debate on more solid ground.
A natural follow-up to this book would be annual reports that state just how these fourteen regional indicators are faring. The indicators themselves could be tinkered with, because while the authors have done a good job getting started, they are obviously not the last word on the subject.
I could see taking the authors' concept of uniting the manmade and natural environment even further. It's significant that the authors include asthma rates under their list of indicators, because this is gauging the health of humans, not Peregrine falcons. How about including infant mortality and life expectancy for the H20 region, or obesity rates? Maybe the 15 or so million people could be viewed more centrally as part of the inhabitants that make up the H2O region.
As many have argued, the idea of a nature apart from humanity is largely dead, given climate change, proliferation of invasive species, and other global economic and environmental realities. It seems a productive challenge to start incorporating this holistic philosophy into more of our decision making. Protecting streams and lakes from development in the Catskills, for example, not only helps fish and other wildlife but also the health of someone drinking tap water on Third Avenue in Manhattan.
Given limited space and resources, there will always be conflicts between humans and the other species with whom we share our estuary. Westway supporters might grit their teeth to read in H2O about how the health of the striped bass that swim under abandoned piers off Manhattan derailed what could have created new habitat for an equally important species, people. But it's clear that H20 opens a door that others will walk through. It's an enormously important book because it gets us to see aspects of our environment that are as real as the Empire State Building but often not as visible because we haven't had someone point us in the right direction.
@RegionalPlan