SHELTER

(Photo Source)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Matt Chadsey, Project Leader, Earth Economics

Did you know the 8th Annual South Sound Sustainability Expo is happening this weekend? This event is a great opportunity to connect with private and public organizations whose work support environmentally sustainable practices. Learn more about the event here.

At our recent ROSS Project Leadership Team meeting we asked our participating partners what the most important developments in open space have been for their organizations in 2014 and what they are looking forward to in 2015. We were excited and inspired by the great strides that have been made to protect and enhance open space in the Central Puget Sound and beyond over the last year. We know that the efforts mentioned are just the tip of the iceberg for these organizations and the region. While there is much more work to do to ensure and protect open space, we are delighted to celebrate these great achievements and look towards the future. Join us!

We are delighted to share the great efforts of the Mountains to Sound Greenway, Stewardship Partners and their Snoqualmie Valley partners for their visionary planning in the watershed. This beautiful "report card" reflects the thoughtful work they are doing to create a robust watershed plan to protect and enhance their forests, farms and rural lands that make up 96% of their land and provide essential ecosystem services for the entire Puget Sound region.

Did you fly Alaska Airlines recently? If you did, you might have seen the great article on the University of Washington’s Green Futures Research and Design Lab, where the ROSS project is housed. The GFL’s innovative Green Wall project is prototyping and monitoring growing food vertically as well as providing habitat for native birds, reducing heat island effect and reducing heating and cooling costs for adjacent buildings.

Trees have a special place in our hearts and a productive place in our community. In urban areas, trees help us filter the air, manage heat island effects, and they are correlated with improved roadway safety and human health. Seattle ranks among those cities with a high percentage of urban tree canopy, but keys in on where there are major differences between neighborhoods. As we look at the link between open space and key regional challenges, the ROSS will investigate how different communities benefit from our natural system and how to address these disparities.

It has been a busy summer for us here at the ROSS. Not only have we been hard at work on our open space services work and entering into an agreement with King County and the City of Seattle for the Green-Duwamish WOSS you may have read about earlier this month, we’ve also been developing a new website.

Monday, September 9, marked a seminal moment in open space planning, as King County and the City of Seattle, in the presence of community groups, natural resource agencies and local news media, announced plans to develop a Green/Duwamish Watershed Strategy.