The platform objective is to develop process models and pilot projects to demonstrate how responsible parties can conserve and restore natural resources cost effectively through innovative market mechanisms that address real barriers and engage important stakeholders.
– Inactive industrial sites and other brownfield properties will be transformed into productive green space under this initiative. Brownfield sites are properties that are underutilized and difficult to develop because of contamination concerns. These sites, many of which are located near rivers and coastal estuaries, nonetheless can have significant ecological potential. And while brownfield reclamation is not new – there is plenty of activity throughout the United States in returning brownfields to commerce – the new concept that this project offers is the use of market forces to accomplish ecological outcomes as opposed to a new strip center or apartment complex. This approach offers unique opportunities for public benefit and for the landowner. The first project of this kind is the Houston/Galveston Green Brownfields Initiative.
As one of the nation’s most industrially active regions, Houston/Galveston is blessed with a robust economy that produces a wide array of goods, including crude oil, natural gas, petroleum products, chemicals, and oil field equipment. An inevitable legacy of this industrial success is a sizeable inventory of brownfields. By converting some of these sites to green space, the initiative will enhance the quality of life in this rapidly-growing region and provide landowners with a viable and cost effective means of turning a liability into an asset.
Houston-Galveston Green Brownfields Initiative Letters of Support
– When Hurricane Katrina’s flood waters devastated New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast in 2005, the world learned a valuable lesson about the importance of maintaining natural barriers to protect communities from the forces of nature. The depletion of forests and wetlands, which would have absorbed some of the advancing water, helped turn a devastating storm into a truly cataclysmic event.
The disaster gave new urgency to an ongoing US BCSD-led reforestation project in the seven states of the Lower Mississippi River Valley, where business, environmental, government and academic leaders are joining forces to convert marginal farmland in river bottomland into sustainable forests. The project has resulted in more than 100,000 acres of cropland being converted to cottonwood and hardwood forests. The potential value from these conversions as a new crop for the landowners is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. By reestablishing trees along the river valley, the natural barriers that can slow rainwater runoff and mitigate flooding are being restored. They are also helping protect some of the nation’s most important fish and wildlife habitats from the ravages of human activity.
Click here to view informational afforestation DVD
