City Manager Greg Porter joins the discussion at EarthX Festival
BY TAYLOR LOWDER • APR 23, 2018 • Dallas Innovates
EarthX, the world’s largest environmental festival, included exhibitors from a number of universities and other educational groups this past weekend at Fair Park in Dallas.
Attendees could explore careers in science, technology, education, art, and math as well as learn more about university sustainability projects and tips to become more ecofriendly. High school and college students gathered this weekend for EarthxHack, the world’s largest green hackathon. And, Dallas nonprofit talkSTEM brought its walkSTEM program to Fair Park pointing out STEM in everyday surroundings.
HUMANITY & NATURE: COEXISTING IN THE WORLD
A panel Saturday delved into “How Audubon is Changing the World.”
Suzanne Langley, executive director of Dallas-based Audubon Texas, began the panel by explaining rewilding, something all three speakers are very focused on in their work.
“For me, it’s just really simple, it’s restoring to a natural and uncultivated state. Sometimes that’s habitat and sometimes that is getting a species reintroduced, sometimes that’s restoring a river to its natural flow,” Langley said.
“What we have to realize in urban ecology is that we don’t have any more new space in our cities, so how do we make the most of the space that we have?”
Suzanne Langley
And why should we care about rewilding?
“What we have to realize in urban ecology is that we don’t have any more new space in our cities, so how do we make the most of the space that we have?” Langley said.
Greg Porter, city manager for Cedar Hill, expounded on the idea of rewilding with friends — meaning getting everyone involved, educating, and collaborating with as many communities as possible.
Porter believes Cedar Hill could serve as an example for other cities in its environmentally conscious efforts.
“The city has planned itself in such a way where there will be ways for neighborhoods, businesses, and the outside world to interconnect to everywhere else in the city without having to use a car,” Porter said.
A panel Saturday delved into “How Audubon is Changing the World.” From left: Kevin Sloan, UTA; Greg Porter, city of Cedar Hill; Suzanne Langley, Audubon Texas; and Angela Hunt, former Dallas city council member. [Photo: Taylor Lowder]
Teamwork between communities is key to Cedar Hill and the rest of Dallas-Fort Worth making a positive environmental impact as well, according to Porter.
“I think establishing collaborative partnerships with folks who really understand how important it is, how to be able to communicate that, and, frankly, how to put the resources together to be able to ensure that it can be preserved, but also accessed in a way that the community understands is valuable,” Porter said.
University of Texas at Arlington assistant professor Kevin Sloan, who teaches in the School of Architecture, impressed the idea of continuing to converge humanity and nature in Dallas — something that has already begun with the bobcats that have become fixtures throughout the city.
“A couple academic of units are putting radio collars on urban wildcats and tracking them going through our watershed network. Some of these wildcats are going up in some of the toniest neighborhoods of Dallas … We’ve built, deliberately or indeliberately, a new kind of city forum that allows civilization and wildlife to coexist.”
Read the full article at: https://dallasinnovates.com/earthx-coexisting-with-nature-mobile-greenhouse-workplace-design/