NYC Audubon’s Dustin Partridge needs New York City to develop into extra livable for each individuals and wildlife—and inexperienced roofs, he says, are key to that effort.
As you walk by means of the apple orchard, with Honeycrisps and GoldRushes at your ft, a swallow flies by, then a kinglet and an Eastern phoebe, whose presence alerts the beginning of the autumn migration. Not far off, grape vines develop alongside a trellis, native wildflowers buzz with insect exercise, and ripe tomatoes and ears of corn wait to be picked.
Taking all of it in, you might simply think about being on a bucolic farm in upstate New York, removed from the hustle of town. But should you pay attention intently, you’ll be able to hear the vehicles whizzing by on the West Side Highway 60 ft beneath. And should you flip round, you’ll be able to see the Empire State Building to the east.
This is the scene atop the Jacob Ok. Javits Convention Center in midtown Manhattan, home to just about eight acres of greenery, from brief, low-maintenance sedum to tall grasses—making it one of many largest inexperienced roofs within the U.S. and a habitat for greater than 60 fowl species. On a cool, sunny August morning, Dustin Partridge, Ph.D., GSAS ’20, director of conservation and science at NYC Audubon, is walking from part to part, stopping typically to look by means of binoculars at birds he spots out of the nook of his eye.
Partridge started learning the advantages of city inexperienced roofs for wildlife not lengthy after he started his biology graduate studies at Fordham in 2009. As his analysis expanded and he determined to transcend his grasp’s program to pursue a doctorate, he grew to become one of many first researchers on the Javits Center inexperienced roof following its set up in 2014, and he and his employees have continued to observe its animal and bug exercise intently ever since.
For Partridge, it’s a crucial a part of making New York City extra hospitable to people and wildlife—and extra resilient amid warmth waves and different results of local weather change.
Protecting Birds and Boosting Biodiversity
NYC Audubon is certainly one of greater than 450 impartial chapters of the National Audubon Society, a community designed to “protect birds and the places they need” all through the U.S. (NYC Audubon has announced its plan to vary its identify in 2024, as a result of John James Audubon’s legacy as a slave proprietor; the nationwide organization has not introduced an analogous plan.)
To perceive why birds want safety broadly, contemplate this: North America has misplaced practically 25% of its fowl inhabitants up to now 50 years, according to research published in Science magazine. The causes vary from local weather change and habitat loss to poisonous pesticide use—and the analysis factors to wider disruptions of ecosystems very important to each people and wildlife.
To perceive why birds want safety in New York City, contemplate two components: The metropolis lies squarely on the Atlantic flyway migration route—an air path for transient birds that stretches from Greenland to South America and consists of floor areas the place birds cease to seek out meals to gasoline their journey. The metropolis can also be home to greater than 8 million individuals—and an infrastructure that has not solely changed pure habitats however is commonly hostile to the wildlife nonetheless round. It is a metropolis of glass skyscrapers, one through which as much as 230,000 birds die every year in window collisions, in accordance with NYC Audubon analysis.
It’s inside this setting that Partridge and his colleagues at NYC Audubon—together with a devoted solid of volunteers—are working towards defending wild birds and their habitats within the 5 boroughs. They do that by means of initiatives starting from bird-friendly building campaigns like Project Safe Flight that intention to assist birds migrate by means of town safely, to neighborhood science fowl surveys through which novice birders and consultants alike can submit knowledge primarily based on their native observations. The organization’s work, although, just isn’t solely about benefiting wildlife, in accordance with Partridge.
“Biodiversity is important for humans,” he says. “It helps reduce the impacts of climate change. It can lead to ecotourism. Everything we do for wildlife and for birds is also very much for people, especially when it comes to quality of life in the city.”
And whereas biodiversity is each obvious and anticipated at different websites the place NYC Audubon conducts analysis—from coastal wetlands like South Brother Island within the Bronx to giant inexperienced areas like Central Park—it could possibly additionally thrive in locations fewer individuals see or find out about, like on the Kingsland Wildflowers inexperienced roof atop the Broadway Stages movie and TV studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, or throughout the Justice Avenue bioswale in Elmhurst, Queens, a vegetated ditch that catches harmful mixed sewer overflow and holds it till it may be absorbed by the underlying soil.
Of all of the tasks NYC Audubon has labored on, although, the Javits Center, with its midtown Manhattan location, stands as one of many organization’s most distinctive analysis hubs, one that’s fertile for each biodiversity and human collaboration.
A Green Roof ‘Role Model’ in Midtown Manhattan
As the Javits Center inexperienced roof neared completion in 2014—just two years after New York state announced plans to raze the building—Partridge started working as an ecologist and inexperienced roof program supervisor at NYC Audubon. By that point, he had determined to show his analysis on city inexperienced roofs right into a doctoral dissertation, working intently with Fordham biology professor J. Alan Clark, Ph.D.
Along with Clark and grasp’s pupil Kaitlyn Parkins, GSAS ’15, who was learning bat foraging exercise on inexperienced roofs, Partridge spent hours atop the building’s springy sedum carpet organising fowl displays and accumulating insect samples to trace meals availability.
“Dustin was that original researcher on the Javits Center green roof,” notes Clark, who additionally referred to as his former advisee “a visionary, hard-working man.”
In the years since starting his analysis, not solely did Partridge attain his doctorate, in 2020, however he grew to become a founding member of the Green Roof Researchers Alliance, a consortium of greater than 60 researchers, academics, and policymakers for which he’s at present the managing director. The group advocates for inexperienced roofs not solely as websites for growing biodiversity but in addition as instruments that provide power financial savings for buildings, elevated stormwater seize, and enhancements in air high quality.
And as Partridge’s position at NYC Audubon has grown, so has the organization’s work with the Javits Center, which opened a big enlargement to its north facet in 2021. Atop that enlargement is the place yow will discover the orchard, pollinator backyard, and dealing farm, all of that are managed by Brooklyn Grange and function extra websites for NYC Audubon analysis.
For Partridge and his colleagues, their discipline station on the unique building roof—a trailer with monitoring gear and a pc—permits them to dig deeper into the range and quantity of wildlife populating all these acres, a bunch that included greater than 60 fowl species as of October 2023.
All this exercise makes the Javits roof a focal point for others trying to replicate its success—from the mayor of Seoul, South Korea, the place a brand new conference middle is being deliberate, to the New York State Office of General Services, which has proven curiosity in organising related inexperienced roofs throughout its administrative buildings. That success has additionally led to loads of constructive press for the venture, with recent media consideration from The New York Times, WNYC, and Gothamist, amongst different shops.
“Javits has become quite a role model for the city, both in terms of bird-friendly design and for the green roof,” Partridge says. “We’ve learned so much here and it’s been great for moving the city’s policy forward. It’s a really well-known building to point to: This could be the rest of the city.’”
So, will it’s the remainder of town?
Legislative Progress—But Work to Be Done
While inexperienced roofs are removed from ubiquitous in New York City—and whereas access to them and different inexperienced areas remains to be erratically distributed towards rich areas—Partridge factors to some examples of progress. In 2019, the New York City Council handed Local Laws 92 and 94, each a part of town’s Climate Mobilization Act, which require all new buildings or roof replacements to have a “sustainable roofing zone”—photo voltaic panels, a inexperienced roof, or a mix—masking 100% of the roof.
Meanwhile, town’s inexperienced roof tax abatement gives property homeowners $5.23 per sq. foot of inexperienced roof area and $15 per sq. foot in districts deemed precedence areas primarily based on a scarcity of inexperienced area, mixed sewage overflow points, and warmth vulnerability. And as for the safety of birds, in 2020, New York City enacted Local Law 15, which requires all new building and important renovations within the metropolis to make use of bird-friendly supplies like seen window glazing or UV-reflective patterns.
“It’s so important that as people create these habitats that they use bird-friendly glass surrounding them,” says Parkins, who went on to work and seek the advice of for NYC Audubon from 2013 to 2022 and is now the glass collisions program coordinator for the American Bird Conservancy. “The worst thing we can do is lure birds and other wildlife into places that are dangerous for them.”
NYC Audubon and its counterparts on the state organization, Audubon New York, are additionally advocating for 2 items of laws—the Lights Out Act on the native stage and the Dark Skies Act on the state stage. Both legal guidelines would curb the usage of inside and exterior lights in buildings which are dormant by means of the night time. Those vivid lights are a serious reason for fowl dying as a result of they lure migrating birds away from their supposed path and trigger them to crash.
Partridge says that New Yorkers who want to see that laws handed, or who need to see inexperienced roofs added to their buildings and not using a mandate, can name their City Council members and state legislators, and speak to their building homeowners about the advantages of sustainable roof protection.
He additionally encourages each avid birders and extra informal, curious events to volunteer with NYC Audubon and even simply to sign up for a free birding tour, which might underscore the significance of defending New York City’s wildlife and their habitats.
“It’s incredible, the bird life that’s in the city,” he says, “and we have really amazing guides that can take you out. It’s just great to see not only the birds that will spend their summers or winters here but also the birds that are migrating through. It’s a whole new world that so many New Yorkers don’t see, and it’s an amazing aspect of the city.”
