Patterns & Paradigms | The Pattern Podcast
Patterns & Paradigms | The Pattern Podcast
Patterns & Paradigms | Season 2 Episode 05: Land Use & the Climate for Change with Kim Elliman
The parks in New York's Hudson Valley saw large increases in visitation during the pandemic, highlighting the importance of parkland and open spaces for recreation. This week, we're talking about open space, land use, conservation and the balance between preservation and development.
This week's episode features Christopher "Kim" J. Elliman, President and CEO of the Open Space Institute (OSI), a land conservation organization that has conserved more than 2.3 million acres in the eastern U.S. and, in the process, has created more than 50 new parks and protected areas. OSI acquires, finances, and promotes the conservation of lands for human use and resilient natural systems.
We are experiencing a paradigm shift, a fundamental change in the way we usually do things. We are intentionally choosing to see the silver lining opportunity arises. We can shine a light on the things that weren't working well on those things that weren't really working at all, we can regroup reevaluate and re-engineer it's time to explore new patterns and paradigms those that inspire us to rise above the chaos and explore how the conditions of today and take us to a better tomorrow patterns and paradigms the pattern podcast from Hudson Valley pattern for progress. You're listening to season two episode five land use, and the climate for change with your host pattern, president and CEO, Jonathan Dropkin.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone. And welcome to this week's episode of patterns and paradigms. We hope you enjoyed last week's with Mary Stuart Masterson. Today, we will be joined by the CEO of the open space Institute, Kim element for a wide ranging discussion on land use preservation, climate change, and how this all might impact the Hudson Valley. Please remember to subscribe to our podcast on Apple or wherever else you go for finding your podcasts. And if you enjoy it, why not share the episode and ask a friend to download it wherever they find their favorite shows. So bubble or trend. Okay. If I said to you Reddit game, stop Robin hood hedge funds, would you know what I was talking about? So for this tiny little moment in time, wall Street's life was completely disrupted. Now it was bound to happen sooner or later, but is it a trend or is it a bubble? There's no question that there's going to be far reaching implications of what happened in wall street last week, wall street does not like uncertainty and this was uncertainty on steroids. And you know, the, there are those that are saying that the hedge funds clearly got their comeuppance here. Even if it was for a day or two, until all the regulators stepped in and said, well, time at can't really be doing this, but is it a bubble or is it a trend now I want to also go back to one of my favorite topics, which is general motors. We'll be phasing out all cars and trucks using gas by 2035. If this actually comes to pass, which is in 15 years, it will totally disrupt the car industry. So as to whether this is a bubble or trend, let's see what happens next. But before I introduce our guests, let me ask my partner at pattern. What's up, Joe, what are we looking at this week?
Speaker 3:I think we may want to take a look at the changing nature of work and specifically remote work. And so, you know, we've got internet companies like Amazon, Netflix Wayfair, and to some degree telemedicine, they're all disruptors in our economy that delivery of goods and services has all been put on. As you said before, steroids, the efficiency and the sheer scale of things have drastically been improving those systems, right? So if you look at a, um, a much wider array of goods and services and how are they delivered? Well, they're delivered right into your home. Now it's drastically altered the way many of us operate on a daily basis in respective to all of our communities going out, going in, everything in anything can be shipped to your home from clothes and apparel to laundry soap and ironing boards. And from dog biscuits to a snow shovel, if you can box it, they can ship it. And not just from the large internet companies like Amazon and Wayfair, local grocery stores have established new delivery systems akin to ordering a pizza call the local grocer and in a few hours, your bananas and almond milk or at your doorstep. The problem is so are the chips, ice cream and cookies online grocery store deliveries has jumped somewhere around 90% since last year in food delivery has jumped over 50%. So why am I talking about all of this? Well, it all has to do with services being delivered at home, things being delivered to you at home and how what's the impact on working from home? Well, it's not all good for all professions or simply put it's not for all professions. Many people cannot do their work from home, but for those who can, there are some great benefits, no commute, no dry cleaning and more free time. Well, maybe not more free time. I believe most people are now working longer hours and have turned the commute into more productive office time while others have learned to call it a day after eight hours or so it's a balancing act. There's also the issue of space and separation. If your home is not set up for working, it can be very, very stressful. Some people are forced to work at a kitchen table or a corner in their living room while others may have converted an entire bedroom into an office. Some employers recognize the setup cost for home office and offered stipends for furniture and equipment. There are sacrifices either way and some are more difficult than others. There's also the issue of remote learning and its impact on remote work. The kids are likely home well apparent, or the parents are trying to get their work done at the same time. Sharing broadband sharing screens, sharing keyboards, working from home is not the Tennessee that some may think it is. It's a tough balance and a boundary really does need to be established. Some people shut the door of their home office at the end of the day, and don't go back until the next morning. Some people are actually getting into their cars every morning. They drive around in circles for 20 minutes, get a coffee return home, and then start their day. At least it resembles a normal business day of the past. Other consequences of working from home for those who are able to keep an eight hour a day and we're able to convert their commute time to home projects. Well, this has resulted in a whole new world of weeknight and weekend warrior storming the aisles at Lowe's and home Depot. Also, there should be far less sick time used, right? You're masking up, you're staying at home, nobody's getting cold or the flu or other elements. And if somebody does get a cold or a flu, you got to say, Hey, wait a minute. Where have you been? Are you wearing your mask? It also doesn't matter where your home is in terms of work from home. I have some friends who are working, let's say in a much warmer climate and even on a Sandy beach down South this quickly gets to the point of disparities though, in this work from home model specifically, in terms of wealth, the professions associated with higher wages will do much better than others who are working in fields of hospitality, retail, and other service sector jobs, including warehouse, distribution, trucking, and manufacturing, where location does matter because you need to be there to do the job. Other issues include the loss of corporate culture, personal relationships, and in-person water cooler chats. No more talking about the big game, saying it around the cooler onboarding for new staff is also very difficult for new graduates, fresh out of school. It's difficult to feel like you're one of the team. If you've never really actually met the team in person, social interaction is part of all of us as human beings. And that's important. We do not lose focus on that. That's what's going on with remote work,
Speaker 2:Joe, I'm going to give you the last word that was extremely well said. Uh, listeners, if you have anything to add, please send it to us at Hudson Valley pattern for progress slash podcast. Joe, thanks for being with us as always. You're very welcome. Let me introduce our guests, Kim element, the CEO of one of the largest land conservation entities in the United States headquartered here in New York city open space Institute or OSI does a great deal of work throughout New York state, including that's and Valley. Kim has been with OSI since 1992. So he probably doesn't want me to say that and has been a wonderful colleague on all things land use. Hi Kim, and welcome to patterns and paradigms. Um, as I ask all my guests, how are you doing? And you know, how has the pandemic been?
Speaker 4:Um, thanks Jonathan. It's, it's always great to talk to you and it's great to talk to you and have it recorded for a change. Um, so you have to stay, stay on the straight and narrow, um, uh, and you can't misquote me when this is all over. Um, you're recording this in the middle of a snow storm and it's sort of it's, it almost feels normal to be home in the middle of a snow storm, um, because when wouldn't go out anyway, um, but I must say zoom life working from a home life remote work, um, and maybe it reflects my age, but I just, I'm not used to it. And, um, I miss, uh, the conviviality and congeniality of having colleagues in our office
Speaker 2:Open OSI has how many employees.
Speaker 4:So we have about 60 employees. Um, we have, um, uh, eight office, 10 offices in eight States. Um, but our home is New York and our home office is in New York city. We're uh, about half of the employees, um, on a normal year, uh, would be working, but, um, we've been virtual since early March. Okay.
Speaker 2:All right then, um, so let's start with an explanation of, I, you know, I know OSI, but maybe not all of our listeners do so maybe you can explain the organization, its mission and uh, tell us a bit about,
Speaker 4:Okay. So, um, OSI, um, the open space Institute was founded 40 something years ago. I'm getting close to 50. The exact incorporation date remains a subject of active debate, but I think given that our 50th is going to be soon, we'll fudge it so we can celebrate our 50th over multiple years. Right? If you, if I call you during my, our 50th anniversary, Jonathan, you know, I'm calling you from money. Um, so OSI is a land conservation organization, a land trust. Um, and basically we, what we say is, um, we protect land. We buy land for people for wildlife forever. Um, most of our land is, uh, converted either to parks or working landscapes. And I can tell you more about either of those things. Well,
Speaker 2:But, and if I understand, just to give our listeners some perspective, the numbers are somewhat staggering. I mean, into the millions of acres and 60 or so new parks or preserves is are those right
Speaker 4:Numbers? Those are the right numbers. God, can you believe it? Um, 2.3 million acres, um, in, so we only work in the Eastern us and over, we started working just in the Hudson Valley. Um, and then we started expanding a little bit, um, depending upon the mountain sources of funding we got and, um, given some of our work in, in New York, some foundations approached us, um, and asked us to work in the Northern forest, which run from Maine to New York. And we had a relatively successful program doing that. So we kept moving both North and South. So we've done projects in Canada. We've done projects all the way down in Florida, but principally we're looking at, um, the corridor that runs along the Appalachians. Um, mostly on the Eastern side of the Appalachians. Um, but New York is our home state. We've done most of our work in New York. We do about a hundred transactions a year. And, um, our last 2020 was a bit of anomaly. We can get to that, but, um, last couple of years we've been doing about a hundred transactions a year, so it's two, two a week. Um, and our budget has been about a hundred million dollars a year.
Speaker 2:So let's, I think we'll, we'll jump look, we've been having these conversations for a while. So we'll jump around a bit. Um, in the last year with the advent of COVID with, uh, uh, the economic disruption with, uh, the, the social justice has, uh, caused you to reflect on the mission of OSI at all,
Speaker 4:It has. And in the last year, and the last two years, we have become more conscious of who we protect land and nature for. Um, you know, fundamentally, uh, in some time ago we would say we protect land for nature and for people for wildlife, right. And we've had to parse that both in terms of what kind of nature and for, um, which people. And so that there's basically is, as you said, I mean, there are basically four crises in our society in the last year, right? There's climate there's race, there's the economy. And of course there's the pandemic. Um, and the before as Biden has been made very clear in the first 10 days or 11 days of his administration, the four aren't linked, um, that, you know, the economy and the pandemic is affecting people of color and people who live in under-resourced communities much more severely than, um, other communities. Um, and climate also affects certain communities. Low-lying communities worse in, in, along watercourses, um, worse than others. So we've had to look, we've had to define the issues that we want to try to address and parse those issues, uh, with a bit more thought. And the one thing I will say about the first year of COVID though, I hope this doesn't continue. Is it just giving us time to reflect upon, um, how we think about our work in our, the goals and values that are embedded in our work? So yes, we have thought about it.
Speaker 2:I'll search it. No, no, no. I'm not at all. Our conversations are generally, uh, pretty free and open. So, uh, there was something you said just before we started to record, which was about the connectivity of where open space is and where people are, and then how do we bridge that in a way that makes people comfortable?
Speaker 4:So, yes, you know, we're the open space Institute we protect open space, open space is found in rural America. Um, and there's a certain culture and society in rural America. Um, but many of the users of parks and open space come from urban America. And again, there's a culture and there's a conversation, um, around that. And so we have increasingly focused on trying to find language that bridges, those two cultures and those communities. Now it's not, we're not, I'm not pretending we're inventing something or that this is impossible or that we are unique in addressing this. But I always remind our staff, which typically tends younger and, um, more urban and that they can't just be speaking to each other. They have to be speaking to an older generation and they have to be speaking to the people where we work. I think the social license for an organization like the open space Institute is that we have to be attentive to and respond to the communities in which we work rural America and for, and who use the parks that we create. And that's an interesting piece, has been a lot of work done about who uses parks, um, and both on a national level and a state level. And basically it's funny that the New York tracks the national numbers fundamentally 70% of the users of a park say, Minnewaska, state park, or Fahnestock state park, or the Adirondacks or Catskills. I mean, you name a park 70% live within 30 miles of that park. And they typically use it during the weekdays, the 30% that come from outside, that radius tend to come on weekends, which makes sense, right? It's they use park, they come up for the day, but there's a lot of diversity in that one third that comes up principally on the weekends. Um, and so when you think about how you build out a park, how do, how do you design the amenities that people want in a park when you may be talking about very diverse user groups? So actually we're, we're w OSI has embarked on a study with the, um, outdoor recreation community, um, in conjunction with what New York state department of Ronald conservation, DEC, and the office of parks and recreation OPR, the two agencies that manage Parklands in New York state. We are trying to look at the demographics and project out the future use of New York state's parks. And it's been a fascinating exercise. If I could go on one second shareholder, basically somewhat oversimplified. We think of parks in four different types, they're urban parks, you know, your community parks or your central parks or whatever. Um, that really is passive recreation. People walk or they bike, but you know, there's not that much structured recreation. That's more suburban parks where people go to play golf, they go to, to baseball and soccer and whatever, right there, they're playing fields and there times, and the land is really committed to organized sports. So those are the first two types. The third type is really a day use kind of park and think of Harriman, state park, or bear mountain or Fahnestock, or even in Wasco, right? I mean, people go there and they're there day users, right. Um, but they tend not to the facilities, tend not to have a whole lot of overnight accommodations and people don't really think of it that way. Then you have the Catskills or the Adirondacks where people do go and spend two or three days at a time and they're camping and maybe car camping, or they may have a, B and B, but they're there for effectively the same thing. They're there to spend several days in, in the wilds. And those parks are really managed as much for their biological or ecological integrity read biodiversity as they are for human recreation. The first three types are really being managed for human use. And the last is more nature-based. So I've been doing this stuff for close to 40 years, or maybe even longer if you really pushed me. And the difference I've seen over the four decades is in the seventies and eighties, the environmental movement and Piggly the land conservation movement really pushed for wilderness type parks where people were visitors, but it was really being managed for nature. And you got into a lot of fights. I mean, there were a lot of fights in the Adirondacks and the Catskills and, and you were a veteran of some of those, um, no, you're on the wrong side. Um, and, uh, you know, increasingly we have been managing land and buying land and building facilities for people. So the pendulum is swung. Our, our parks are, and the work of OSI is much less about adding land to wilderness areas and is much more about adding land and basically access to the parks the day use books, the Hudson Valley parks. So I can't
Speaker 2:That, that little slip go that I'm on the wrong side. I think as an organization though, w we always are educated as to both sides. Our job really is to try to be a centrist organization in a world that consistently is trying to push us to one side or the other, and it just keeps getting worse. Um, the middle is a hard place to be. So pattern was founded in 1965 for trying to find balance land use. And, um, yes, I do advocate for development, but, um, I am also personally and the organization very respectful of Parkland. Um, it is part of what makes the Hudson Valley great. We do not minimize that. So that was just for the benefit of my organization, that I, uh, while we certainly have had many discussions where we take sides, in which case that's how we learn. And that's old school, you know, I wish there was more of that where you could debate with each other and then go have a beer. Um, those are days are, are, are numbered. And there's just not a lot of that, but that's how you learn is when you take aside and you can debate with someone, what was your favorite parks project?
Speaker 4:Um, well in New York state, my absolute favorite, um, was stolen forest. Um, because OSI, along with, uh, the trust for public land was a joint project working first with the Coleman administration. But principally with the Pataki administration created the largest, made the largest investment in New York state and a hundred years in its park system. I was a hundred million dollar transaction, very complicated. It took us three years to do another three years to fund. So it was a big chunk of my relatively, um, still young life. And, um, uh, you know, we created a park out of scratch the other favorite one. I have
Speaker 2:Geographically in the Hudson Valley, right. Just for this,
Speaker 4:Everything I'm telling you, but I'm still in forest is on the edge of New York and New Jersey. And it extends North through the Hudson Highlands and is basically forms the backside and out of Harriman state park.
Speaker 2:And, and as a favorite project, I realized that is a, a very broad question, but what made it interesting to you? What was it, the challenge? Was it community pushback? What, what sort of made it interesting?
Speaker 4:Um, you know, I'm sort of a transaction junkie, um, and that's why OSI does so many deals. Uh, it was an enormously complicated transaction because there were multiple land uses. We were dealing with two different States and the federal government, um, three different towns and, um, two different counties. So that creates complexity. Um, and you know, they're also in holdings, right? International paper at an inholding and why you had an inholding, um, various other users, there was water needs. There was the Appalachian trail corridor. So there were New Jersey drew, 5% of its water out of, out of the watershed. Um, uh, the Appalachian trail wound its way through about 10 or 12 miles of Sterling forest. So you had lots of interests that you had to try to accommodate, and then the company we were buying it from was in bankruptcy. So you had to deal with the bankruptcy, um, judge and, uh, lawyers. So it, it, it had, but having said all that, uh, it's a wonderful addition, uh, and an important ecology. Another, I would throw out two more. I've been at this too long to choose, to have just one favorite child. They're all. I love the go for it. Another I'd loved is a[inaudible] state park, uh, which as you know, is, is, um, in new Windsor, in Cornwall New York, it is immediately to the West of 87, um, from storm King art center in the forest storm King art center was started by the Ogden stern family, and they also own Skinner mug mountain. Um, and at some point in the 1990s, it's hard to believe that, but you were all, but giving away rural real estate. Um, this is before the, the run-up and real estate values at the end of the nineties that ran for about 10 years until the real estate bubble. So we bought it relatively inexpensively. Um, we convinced the Pataki administration to buy it from us, but again, it was creation just like Sterling force of a brand new park at some of the parks that we've worked on had been supplements, compliments in holdings, um, to existing Parklands, but these were two brand new parks. Um, and there's just some satisfaction there. And then the 20 years or 25 years since we bought, it's gonna monk, we've done, uh, um, continued to buy land. And now there's just this web of trails, um, linear parks, which we'll talk about, I hope at some point and just more and more use of[inaudible]. So that's happy, the third thing. And then I will pause. Um, we have in new Paltz we have over 30 years, let me stop for a second land. Conservation is a long haul, um, enterprise. I mean, everything I'm talking about tends to take decades. Um, so we've been working in new Paltz for 35 years in mineral Wasco. We've basically doubled the size of[inaudible] state park, but at some point I was standing on the top of SCADA monk, I mean, of, of, um, mineral Wasco, and actually had Mo mountain house. So it was, Mohonk not metal Wasco looking down and we protected a lot of land to the South of Mohonk, but Peter Beanstock who I think at one point it was on your board is still on our board, said, you know, Kim, you've done a great job protecting the Ridge. You haven't done much about the Valley. And that was a real pivot for me because it's great to be, I mean, more people look at the Ridge then look down at the Valley, but you also want a Valley that you look across and is green, right? I mean, somehow the view of the rigid spoiled, if you have a bunch of high rises now Newpaltz would never create high rise, but you get the conceptual idea. So we started working on, um, the land West of the Wallkill river. So over time, OSI bought hundreds of acres of farmland, and we're basically actually thousands of acres of farmland, about 3000 acres. And we are, um, basically subsidizing the continuation of farming on much of that land. But we thought that again, the social license wasn't just to have farmers continue to farm as benighted as that might be. It was also to provide some public access. So we constructed something with some help of the foundations, particularly the Butler conservation fund, um, that we called river to rich. And it goes from the West side of new Paltz and the bridge over the Wolf Hill river, all the way up in, you can either go up to Mohonk or up to and Wasco. So a six mile trail that runs from, um, the town of new Paltz to the state park. And that then leads to about 110 miles of carriage trails, but it was a really fun, and it's only been active about two and a half years. The first year there was about a hundred thousand years. There's this year, there's going to be closer to a quarter million. Now some of that is, is COVID and people want to be outdoors, which is a topic we should talk about, but some is just, people are finding it, recognizing and using it. And that's incredibly satisfying. So we have this trail winding along the edge of, of farm lands, uh, but for us, and it winds up gradually and sometimes steeply. Um, so you get to the edge of the Ridge. So river to Ridge, uh, there's a loop. If you want to do that, there's a one by one, one way you can bike it, you can ride it on horses, you can walk it anyway. It's great. It's wonderful.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, it's funny because yes. Um, I care deeply as those pattern about appropriate development and job creation in the Hudson Valley. And certainly, you know, our population has been rather stagnant and we need to attract new people. Um, we, until recently we had an office in the city of Newburgh and I live in Sullivan County and on my ride up 84, um, I, you know, knew the landscape really well during COVID one of the warehouse distribution plants, which in and of itself is not a bad project block it abuts, route 84, it's a million square feet. And it gave me great pause to see that what was traditionally green was now this giant warehouse. And I only look at it and say, there wasn't some not to oppose the warehouse, but to say there wasn't some way to berm it, to be able to set it back to do something, because part of the fun of driving up route 84 is that most of it, not all of it, but most of it is green. Um, and I think that in the, you know, certainly we found out when people were allowed to come out from the lockdown, where did they go? And the Hudson Valley was green space, open space. And I'm trying to tell people if there's one thing that I know for certain is going to happen this spring and summer is if you thought a lot of people try to access the parks and open space in the Hudson Valley last year, he ain't seen nothing yet.
Speaker 4:I totally agree. You know, uh, 2016 was the Centennial of the national park service and the national park service never had more visitors than in 2016, ditto in New York state park system. Um, you know, the two are correlated, as I said before. Um, I mean, people are people and if they want to use national parks, New York state has national quality parks. They're going to use New York state parks too. Um, but then there was sort of a flattening. I mean, it didn't go down. And what you saw in 2020 was another significant increase. I mean, double digit increase of where we'd been in 2016. So to your point, people between not being able to get outside much to outside being safer than indoors, the ability to be socially distanced on trails and in parks, um, and just the need to get out of your home zoom environment, um, park use just as escalated and continues to, and to his credit. I know you didn't ask me, but to his credit, Andrew Cuomo in his latest budget has allocated another 400 million over the next four years to 440 million to, um, build out more amenities for parks so that they can withstand the kind of heavy use that you've mentioned.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Which I think will only continue to grow the, uh, the younger generation likes, uh, trails likes, um, that part of their life, um, helped me get this. I was just thinking about this while you were talking about the preservation of farmland, what was revealed recently in the newspaper about bill Gates, be something like the largest owner or preserver? I don't know, owner of farm. Okay.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So my understanding is that, um, and listen, I wouldn't take my word for it on this, but as memory serves, his investment company started buying Midwestern and Western farm lands in the recession. Great recession when land prices plummeted. And so, you know, um, I think it was an investment play, but to his credit, I think he's also probably managing those lands. Well,
Speaker 2:Well, I think that this is, this is the, there's a delicate balance with which most people do not have patience for, which is that it's Microsoft. But part of telling the story of bill Gates is what we were just discussing, which if you told people nothing else about bill Gates and they didn't know what Microsoft was, they might say, that's a great guy until you told them about the rest of the story, then you go, well, wait a minute. He's one of the tech giants. I'm not certain well, you know, but it's how they use their money. So, um,
Speaker 4:This is an investment play though, not a conservation play. Having said that, I think he'll manage the land well because his investment depends on it, long-term investment, but just to be clear, he's done some wonderful things on, on vaccines and medicines and climate. Um, but I, I just don't know whether his ag investments has a green, uh, end game to them, but I'm sure he's managing them well in terms of soil, pesticides, herbicides, um, all the inputs that aren't environmental friendly.
Speaker 2:Well, and if he isn't, I'm sure Kim it's someone like you and the fellow
Speaker 4:Podcast,
Speaker 2:I will say, I will make certain, he does talk to me a little bit about open space and its relationship to climate change, because I'm not going to say that all of the listeners of this podcast understand the significance. And, you know, there was just an announcement this past week, uh, general motors say that by 2030, 35, 35, 35, that none of their V all their vehicles will be electric. So for those people that like driving big trucks, don't worry, they're going to still make big trucks, but they're going to make certain that they're electric. And so how does open space and climate change? How do we use them in a safe, in the same paragraph? Let's say,
Speaker 4:So there's something called nature. BITNET nature based solutions or based solution Nathan natural solutions, um, nature-based solutions. And actually, uh, in one of his executive orders, president Biden has announced climate 30 by 30. And in some respects, it's a very elegant combination. We are fundamentally facing two huge crises in this world. One is climate change and the other is the loss of biodiversity. Um, I think everyone knows climate change in the world's warming up, even today's snowstorm. And the polar vortex that preceded is only because it's warmer the Arctic and that pushes cold air down on a sport suffering new Yorkers. Um, but, um, you know, I think sometimes people don't appreciate the loss of biodiversity and what that means. So let me just give you a couple of quick factoids and absolutely hand signal if I go on too long, cause it really is quite depressing.
Speaker 2:Well, but I also want to just back up a bit, when you say everyone knows about the impact of climate change, and I will say to you and maybe not everyone, but all right, let's do biodiversity
Speaker 4:Diversity, then we'll get back to climate. Um, so, um, a million species are at risk of extinction and the world, um, worldwide, a third of the insect population, th the insect populations decreased by a third in the last 40 years, the bird population United States has decreased by 30% in the last 50 years, the population of African lions and African elephants have decreased by 90%. So 40 years ago, there were 400,000 lions in Africa. Now they're only 40,000 wild lines. The population of, of wild tigers is now 3,500. Um, you just go, you know, they're 300, right whales left. And in the world, there are two Northern white rhinoceros left in the world. I mean, it's just staggering and you can go on and on, but you know, million species are at risk and they're at risk, um, fundamentally because of habitat loss or degraded habitat. And part of that is also, they don't have corridors to go from, you know, mostly many of these animals are migratory and if they don't have a migratory corridor because of railroads or cars or pipelines or houses, you know, they can't migrate. And then basically they starve to death, um, because the migration was following food, following water. So, um, the us, um, it was prompted by some us scientists, um, thought that there should be this, of what is known as 30 by 30. And it's basically been adopted worldwide, which is we should save 30% of the world by 2030. So in the next two to 10 years. So what does that look like? I'll get to that in a second. Um, so climate change, you know, we're throwing too much carbon in the atmosphere, you know, I forget the exact numbers, but you know, pre-industrial, they're about 300 parts per million carbon in the atmosphere. And the industrial revolution comes, it's pumping more and more. Now we've about 450 million parts, um, parts per million of carbon. So that's a 50% increase and there's a correlation between temperature and carbon in the atmosphere. So at this point, everyone acknowledges that, or most people acknowledge that the, whatever the source, everyone acknowledges, whatever the source, there's a lot more carbon and there's a lot more warmth, right? 2020 was tied for the warmest year on record, and that produces severe storms. It produces, you know, things like Irene and severe storms, more frequent storms, you know, the Catskills in Sullivan County where you live. I think they've had one 500 year storm and two, 300 year storms and 1000 year storm all in the last 10 years, right? I mean, statistically, that's not supposed to happen. So, um, uh, that's a consequence, you know, changing weather, chat patterns, changing precipitation patterns, more severe storms, extreme, cold, extreme, warm, all that's climate change, right? So if you look at the ways you get carbon out of the atmosphere, reduced carbon nature plays a role. And most scientists think roughly a third or a little bit more of the carbon can be extracted and absorbed out of the atmosphere through trees, through soil and through the oceans and of those three, four. So the greatest about half of the carbon that's submitted every year is absorbed by trees. So, and, and intact force and ancient force do a better job of that than new force for various reasons, which we can go into or not. You can ask me the question, but I won't go there now. So one of the things we've been trying to do is, um, protect as many forests as we can through various tools, but to put forests in some kind of perspective, uh, basically a million acres of forest land is lost every year in the United States. That's the equivalent of a football field, every 30 seconds or the state of Rhode Island every year in the United States is lost from forest and degraded. And so the photosynthesis occurs. And so you have two concepts here. One is sequestration and the other is storage. So sequestrations is the, what the plants take up in the moment, right? So in photosynthesis, when you have photosynthesis that sequesters carbon and converts it into tree roots, right. Or leaves storage is the Seaquest ration. That's built up over time. So a tree once they've sequestered the carbon stores, the carbon. So think of sequestrations when you're making a deposit into a bank and storage is your savings account, right? So one of the things that happens when you cut a tree or cut a forest, or the Arctic Tundra, thaws is you release the stored carbon in the atmosphere. So when you cut a tree down is not just that you're going to have less photosynthesis in the world. You're actually reducing. I mean, you're, you're, you are leaking carbon back in the atmosphere. So one of the approaches here is to try to preserve as many forest lands as we can. And that's what OSI has been trying to do for about 20 years. And so of our 2.3 million acres, about 2 million of it is forest. And it either takes the, the form of that 20% of it is parks and park, land preserves, refuges, whatever you want to call it. And then the other 80% is what we call working for us, um, where we w we want to preserve jobs in the woods. So how you do that, you know, these communities in Maine or in the Adirondacks, or the Catskills were built upon people, cutting trees. So we want to preserve that economy and preserve those, those communities. So if we buy basically the development rights, though, people can't convert them to anything but trees, you know, that you have a resource, that's an economic foundation for the community. So we're trying to ensure that the industries and the communities and the individuals, that the trees will be there in perpetuity for them to cut. Now, we may layer on the kind of cutting, or you don't cut near a river because that's what our quality or erosion or things like that. But the fundamental purpose of this is to try to lock up as many acres, um, as possible that the local communities or industry can use.
Speaker 2:So let, let me, there was recently a piece on Sunday morning, which was discussed, what, what they did was they layered onto a map of the United States. The weather changes that were occurring in different parts. So California, they found some people to talk to that said after how many years of fires do we really want to keep living here? And then they went to rising sea levels in different parts of the United States and said, you really want to live in a coastline. So then they came up with a form that they came up with. Here are the cities that you want to live in thinking about climate change. So it was Buffalo, Cleveland, and Madison basically kind of wringing the great lakes. Now, I might say that if you use that same calculus, and then the world just changed because of remote work. So that there's a certain percentage of people that can work from anywhere. Do places like the Hudson Valley become attractive, because yes, we do have some storms, but we don't have tornadoes. Although we did have one touchdown and do Berg, but we don't really have tornadoes or fires or things like that. But I always am trying to find why people want to come to New York. And so can we market ourselves as a climate friendly, um, place to work provided that we're smart about where people locate and the impact on the environment. There's a lot to unpackage there, but, you know, I know your mission, so I'm not certain where you want to go with this, but
Speaker 4:Well, 40% of the world's population lives within I think, 12 miles of a coast of a great Lake or estuary or the oceans. And so a lot of them are going to be subject to displacement. If the sea level rise really happens. Um, and of course quite often is the relatively disadvantaged who live in low line areas, but that's not really the, the, your, your question there probably will be in migration from coastal cities inland. So if I had a choice of buying a home in the Hamptons or buying the home in the Hudson Valley, hands down the Hudson Valley, right. Um, and then within the Hudson Valley, I mean, if you're really serious about this, you look at the local topography, right? If you are in say Garrison, and there's a lot of, um, houses pretty close to the river, I think I'd rather be, uh, in Poughkeepsie on the top of the Hill, then Garrison at the bottom of the Hill.
Speaker 2:Well, the reason I'm asking is I'm here with one of my favorite land preservationists, and I'm thinking about the recent, um, uh, you know, due to the pandemic, the number of people from New York city that are looking to live somewhere else. I hope we can capture them in New York state. So some are looking to the Hudson Valley. So is there an intelligent way that you would tell your friend Jonathan to say yes, but here's how you need to encourage it because we don't want to interfere with the open space.
Speaker 4:So, you know, what's interesting about, um, what you've seen in the pandemic. Well, let me go back. Um, you know, for a lot of my career conservation was fighting developers and, um, that changed in 2008, because there was no more open space development. I mean, people wanted, the millennials didn't want to live there, there wasn't the money to finance open Greenfield development. And while people have moved out of the city, they, there is no real demand for new housing. The demand is for turnkey housing. They are moving out of the city to spend a year building a house, right. They want that house tomorrow or yesterday. Sorry. So I haven't, I mean, I think the real estate values in the Hudson Valley have gone up, but the raw land prices have not
Speaker 2:Well, right. As the, I think the value has gone up partially because the supply is shrinking. And as you say, they want the house right now, right.
Speaker 4:They're willing to pay more. Right. But in previous errors that would have meant that the undeveloped land that developers could develop would also go up and that hasn't happened. There's very little new home construction or development. So I think long-term, if we can focus people's migration to the Hudson Valley for them to do what they are doing now, right. Infill buying older houses and maybe renovating them, you know, basically using existing and quite often quite lovely historic housing stock. That would be a great outcome. Um, and, but having said that I was, I, I have four kids in the twenties and I was talking to some of my college friends just last night about their kids. Our kids all want to live in the city. I think this is a little bit of a temporary aberration about this X migration from urban areas. I think there'll be they'll return unlike you they'll return to Brooklyn as to leave Brooklyn. But, um, I also think there'll be a, a people will also stay in a lot of the Hudson Valley with that. They've moved. I think both are true, right? I think the cities will come back perhaps a little bit sooner than the three or five years they're talking about. But I also think the population that has come back to the Hudson Valley or has come to the Hudson Valley, many of them will stay. And I think, you know, what's really interesting is if you look at the longterm cycle of the Catskills or the Adirondacks, they've lost the younger generation, they've left the Catskill city towns, and they've left the Adirondacks. And this may be an opportunity to repopulate those places with, um, residents and people who are committed to the future, which I think would be a really, really wonderful outcome for the more remote villages and towns. And that's in Valley in New York. I think we're going to leave it there because I think that's, that's sort of Sage like advice from a good friend about how to do this and do it appropriately. Can thank you for your time. Jonathan, it's always a pleasure and suit again. I hope
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to patterns and paradigms the pattern podcast. For more information about this episode, visit our website pattern for progress.org forward slash podcast.