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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. New York is famous for its built environment, right? Skyscrapers, subways, bridges. Beneath and around it all, there's a rich natural world. We talk about it on the show from time to time. Forests in the Bronx, pollinators in Brooklyn, dunes in Queens, wildflowers on Staten Island Island. Now, for the first time, there's a citywide blueprint to preserve and expand that biodiversity.

A new report, Oaks, Our City, and Us, marks a milestone, the most comprehensive assessment to date of New York's wild ecosystems, one that centers local expertise, indigenous knowledge, and community voices. It calls biodiversity a justice issue, warns of habitat losses and climate threats, and insists that nature isn't just a luxury, it's essential infrastructure.

Joining us now are two of the people behind that blueprint, Marielle Anzelone, urban botanist, ecologist, and founder of New York City Wildflower Week, who co-chaired the New York City Biodiversity Task Force, and Kelly Vilar, CEO of the Staten Island Urban Center, who contributed to the report's community vision. We'll talk about what biodiversity really looks like in New York City, why and to what degree it's disappearing, how we might protect it, and what do we mean to treat nature not as a backdrop but as a fundamental part of city life, infrastructure, as they say. Kelly, welcome to WNYC. Marielle, welcome back to the show.

Kelly Vilar: Thank you.

Marielle Anzelone: Hi, Brian. Good morning.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, you can participate in this, too. Do you have a favorite example of wild nature in New York City? A bird, a park, a street tree, something else? 212-433-WNYC. Help us report the story. Help our guests report the story. Have you noticed changes in your neighborhood's ecology? More raccoons, fewer butterflies, or fireflies? You can also ask our guests a question or tell us your ideas for how New York City should protect its natural biodiversity. 212-433-WNYC. Call or text. 212-433-9692.

Marielle, how did this blueprint come together? What are you trying to do here really?

Marielle Anzelone: Well, we want to send a message. First, I want to say Happy World Environment Day. We wanted to release the report today because we wanted to underscore the urgency around the fact that New York City doesn't have a biodiversity plan, but other global cities like Singapore and London and Paris already do. One of the things that we want the report to do is to be a little bit of a wake-up call for city leaders and say that nature in New York City, it's time to take it seriously and that we have dual nature here.

I think, of course, you and your show does such a great job of talking about these issues. By and large, I feel like the city itself and city leaders could do a much better job of creating a rich biodiverse narrative around New York City, which is not as preposterous as it might sound.

Brian Lehrer: What do you mean, Marielle, by the term essential infrastructure? Because as I said at the top, usually, we think of that term with respect to the built environment in the city.

Marielle Anzelone: Yes. It's funny because, on the one hand, as I said, New York City is behind. All these other cities are doing all this work. Mayors are coming out and championing biodiversity. They use the word all the time. In some ways, New York City is the real biodiversity leader. That would be due to our drinking water. Of course, the vast majority of our drinking water comes from watersheds in the Catskills.

The city had the foresight to protect forests and farmland upstate in order for New Yorkers to drink fresh, clean, wonderful water. The city decided to do that to avoid building a water filtration system, which would, of course, cost a lot of money. That is an ecosystem service that nature provides for free. In that example, you can also see how it has a real value, but the city does not include these values in its financial spreadsheet.

Imagine if we had to replicate pollination across the city or stormwater absorption. In so many ways, New Yorkers take nature for granted because it does all of these things kind of as a backdrop. That is the ecological infrastructure that the city relies on.

Brian Lehrer: Now, Kelly, I see this wasn't just a top-down document. We'll talk about some of the alarming trends with respect to all kinds of species that you do document. It came from months of neighborhood engagement and grassroots collaboration. What were some of the things you heard, for example, from Staten Islanders, since you're with the Staten Island Urban Center and other New Yorkers for that matter, that shaped this plan?

Kelly Vilar: I'll start with, I heard from Marielle a couple of years ago when she told us when we were working on a project, "Geez, I wish New York City would develop with the ecologist in mind rather than the realtors." To us, that really struck a very big chord and got us to action to begin to talk about this issue. They call Staten Island the Borough of Parks, and that's the narrative that's put out there quite a bit. What most people don't know is that there's a lot of bald spots where Black and brown people live.

That's not just Staten Island. That's everywhere. We're constantly losing a lot of our nature. One small example, not so small example in Staten Island, where we had a developer ruin, basically flatten wetland that saved a lot of homes and a lot of people from flooding and drowning during Hurricane Sandy. That was in Graniteville in Staten Island. 1,800 trees were just slashed, were just demolished. Two weeks after that, there was a small storm and people got flooded that were never flooded before.

That's just an indication of how much we need to think about as we develop, and we build things in this city, of thinking about nature first. To me, that's a new realm that we need to focus on. I think a lot of people are, I used to say, sea blind. We're a waterfront city, but we don't act like we're a waterfront city. We're also a city that's filled with nature that needs to preserve that nature. This report helps us look at that and helps us also talk with elected officials about why that kind of thinking is important. We really want to elevate the idea of biodiversity as step number one. [laughs] When you're building housing, step number one.

Brian Lehrer: Take me a little deeper on that, Kelly. If you're describing biodiversity as an environmental justice issue, do you have specific proposals in the plan as to how it can be taken into account differently as the city goes forward with, for example, City of Yes, where there's such a push to build a lot more housing? Of course, developers always want to build all kinds of things. What's in the plan to, in the future, take biodiversity more into account, nature more into account as an environmental justice development issue?

Kelly Vilar: Well, one small part is, which, I think, would make a dramatic difference in development is if the ULUR process adopted a much way they adopt an environmental impact study, which really studies buildings, and they don't know a racial impact--

Brian Lehrer: For people who don't know that term, that's the land use determination process of New York City.

Kelly Vilar: The land use, I'm sorry. The Uniform Land Use Review Process.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Sorry, go ahead.

Kelly Vilar: That's the approval process for when big developments are happening in communities. It's a process they have to go through, through community boards, et cetera. In that, it requires developers to go through an environmental impact study and to share that with the community. That environmental impact study looks at buildings. It looks at streets and landscapes and really the gray infrastructure of a community. Then there's a racial impact study that's now required for city planning, and that looks at the people and how that development is going to impact the people that are there now.

We should be looking at also some sort of biodiversity impact study. Like, what's the impact of knocking down 1,800 trees in this community? Had such a development, had such an impact study been done and people were able to respond to that, we would have been able to probably avert the destruction of those trees, because that wetland, as an example, had a major impact.

This kind of tool would help communities that have a majority concrete to begin to look at, how do we reintroduce nature into the space and look at development from that perspective? Not just how do we build this tower in the middle of our community, but how do we build this building and bring nature back and make it not an amenity, make it part of the infrastructure, and just really starting to change our language as we develop.

Those are the things that we-- We have to look at people. We have to look at infrastructure, and we also have to look at the biodiversity around us. Like, these are the things we keep taking away, these things that help us breathe, that help us get clean air, clean water, and shading.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, definitely that.

Kelly Vilar: There's so many reasons why such a report and these recommendations that come out of this report can have big impact on a small community.

Brian Lehrer: As we talk about the new report, if you're just joining us, Oaks, as in oak trees, Oaks, Our City, and Us, an assessment of New York's wild ecosystems, and as you've just been hearing, their impact on people. Marielle, let me go back to you and note that the report does outline some alarming trends as it gets specific on some things. We've lost nearly all our freshwater wetlands over the last 120 years. Bird deaths from glass collisions, collisions with glass number in the hundreds of thousands. Biodiversity is declining fast in other ways. How much of this is from climate change? How much is it from other causes?

Marielle Anzelone: That's such a good question. I know there is a lot of discussion about climate change. Over the years, I've noticed that discussions around the environment have pivoted to being very specifically about climate and lesser about green things. In fact, climate change is a concern, especially with regard to coastal areas. For example, we are losing about 30 acres a year of salt marshes from motorized boats going through area-- Salt marshes are in a section that are very protected. They don't like waves. They like little tiny waves, and that's how the salt marsh has evolved, is because it's in these quiet pockets.

When a motorboat goes through, it creates these waves, and that creates erosion and eats away at the marsh. At the same time, of course, climate change with sea level rise is impacting those marshes as well. At the same time, there are a number of concerns in terrestrial systems that are not necessarily related to climate. This isn't a finding of ours. It's a finding of the IPBES, which is an international scientific body affiliated with the United Nations. Most people know about the IPCC that rates the reports about climate. Well, this is their parallel sister body that works on biodiversity and ecosystem services.

In these reports, they're saying that there's all this intersectionality among causes. The number one for terrestrial systems is habitat loss. Number two is habitat degradation. If you can imagine, we've lost so many of our wetlands and coastal areas. Now, the very few we have left are incredibly susceptible to habitat degradation. It could be things like improper recreational use, ATVs, or deer. Deer are having a huge impact on our forests. Deer are clearing out forested areas so that there is no habitat for birds. In some cases, deer have been known to eat birds, which seems incredible, but it's true, and earthworms.

New York City was glaciated. Earthworms are not native to here, but we have earthworms everywhere. They are voracious eaters and eat the organic material on the forest floor. The forest floor is really the forest. I love a tree, as you know, Brian, but when you're in a forest, the future forest is what's underneath your feet. Those are seedlings and saplings and a nice juicy leaf layer that's holding onto all kinds of water to help the plants grow. Earthworms come in and just eat all of it, and so there's literally nothing underfoot.

We have a lot of things going on. Of course, none of this is helped by the fact that New York City Parks is chronically underfunded. They're doing their very best, but they have so little funds to work with that it's a very herculean task.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, as some of you may remember, Marielle was our guest once a month for a year when we did that New York City Trees series on this show where we looked at the life cycle of various New York City trees over the course of a full year. Let's go to some callers. Fiona in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Fiona.

Fiona: Hey, thank you. I love the concept of ecologists rather than developers deciding how to make New York more resilient, first of all. I used to, as a side job, install green roofs on apartment buildings and office buildings in New York. Before we'd even gotten the growing medium and the plants onto the roof surface, the bees and the birds and the butterflies would all be buzzing around us. I mean, it's that immediate an impact if you put green stuff down on the ground. I was just doing a little back of the calculation.

Central Park is 843 acres. There's 400,000 acres of Manhattan rooftops, just Manhattan. That would be 47 Central Parks added to the city if you could install green roofs on each of them. You'd get the benefit of stormwater capture, lowering temperatures for the people in the building, protecting the roof from rain, and lowering energy costs. It would be a win for everybody, creatures and people alike.

Brian Lehrer: Fiona, great call. Thank you very much. Let's go from the Bronx to Brooklyn and hear from Tricia. Tricia, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Tricia: Hello. Good morning, you guys. I am so excited about this topic and thank you all for your work. I'm calling specifically about the Prospect Expressway, which was originally designed to have stands of wildflowers and some plants there. There's a tranche of milkweed that is regularly mowed to the ground very short, right after the monarchs have laid their eggs. Milkweed is the only plant that they can complete their life cycle on.

I've worked with my local-- I think he's my alderman, Robert Carroll, and I actually worked with the DOT guys. They said if you put them-- I marked them with pipe cleaners, and they said they wouldn't cut it. We managed to save a few stands. Actually, one of the guys managed to see-- we released a butterfly that we had saved the egg that had been mowed. We found the egg and the caterpillars and then working with the kids in my building to do this.

It's just such a simple thing that we've got green space that is not being monitored or cared for properly. Actually, thousands of dollars of planting material are being wasted, and there's all this extra work that's going into that the DOT could be better spent doing other things. I'm going to close with the high line. The high line proves that nature can be commodified and it can be better for our health. Number one song of human health and happiness is the sound of bird song. If you love birds, take care of insects.

The Parks Department throws away the leaves with next year's things. We can do it. No more lot-line-to-lot-line development. Leave room for the dandelions. Thank you all. We can do this, Earthlings.

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Brian Lehrer: Thank you, fellow earthling. Let's go on to Amy in Ossining, who I see teaches Urban Ecology at Columbia. Is that right? Amy, hi.

Amy: It is. Hi. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What you got?

Amy: I teach in the Sustainability Management Program at Columbia. I teach a class in Urban Ecology and another course called Reversing the Biodiversity Crisis. I am just thrilled to hear this conversation and hear your guests frame biodiversity as infrastructure. As one of the projects in the class, my students analyzed the existing PlaNYC framework for any elements related to biodiversity. I think the word came up something like eight times in that entire document.

Brian Lehrer: PlaNYC being the climate change-related planning document that came out of the de Blasio administration, correct?

Amy: Absolutely. Yes. We talk about how sometimes climate mitigation strategies can actually be at odds with biodiversity conservation, but they can also be integrated together. I'm wondering, from your guests, if they have a specific plan for trying to integrate this into actual decision-making, urban planning, and land use in New York City. Is this going to become a reality?

Brian Lehrer: Great question. We're starting to run out of time in the segment. Kelly, why don't you take that first and then Marielle, and then we're out of time.

Kelly Vilar: Okay. I think we have to continue the conversations to elevate biodiversity as an important part of talking about any kind of city planning or development. We need to do that in a variety of ways, not only by affecting the ULURP process but also by affecting the policy process of the city of New York as it relates to city planning. Like, why is it that DOT keeps mowing down the milkweed? Because biodiversity is not in their charge. We need to make it a very important part of the discussions all around. I'll leave it there because I know we're running out of time, but I think that's where we need to begin.

Brian Lehrer: Further to that point, Marielle, I read that cities like Paris, Singapore, San Francisco already have biodiversity action plans, right?

Marielle Anzelone: Yes. It's funny because everyone is talking about this but us. It seems like New York City prides itself on being a global leader. Certainly, it did for climate, but we need to take the same step for biodiversity. We want more than just a biodiversity plan. In fact, we don't want a biodiversity plan. We want biodiversity in every plan. We want every corner of New York City government leadership, the narrative, the stories we tell about the city to include nature. Nature is here and we need to value it. Your earlier caller was right about the impacts on human happiness. It's really important that people have nature where they live and we have pockets of nature to visit.

Brian Lehrer: Marielle Anzelone, urban botanist, ecologist, founder of New York City Wildflower Week, who now has co-chaired the New York City Biodiversity Task Force, and Kelly Vilar, CEO of the Staten Island Urban Center, who contributed to the report's community vision, the report called Oaks, Our City, and Us. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

Kelly Vilar: Thank you.

Marielle Anzelone: Thank you so much.

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