Land Use
Land Use Solutions
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According to Cornell Cooperative Extension, there are more than 2.8 million acres of home lawns in New York State. By transitioning these to more low impact lawns, we can conserve water, reduce runoff and encourage greater biodiversity in our neighborhoods.
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By focusing on community-based participation, placemaking seeks to improve and cultivate local assets, and results in the creation of quality public spaces that contribute to people's health, happiness, and well being.
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The social and relational, and the role of public spaces in building neighborhood scale resilience. While public agencies properly concentrate on major areas of environmental risk like shorelines and floodplains, there is an urgent need to help communities plan to withstand climate stresses including storms, floods and heat waves.
Regional Strategy
Agriculture is one of the few sectors with the potential to absorb and sequester greenhouse gases through regenerative approaches to farming and soil health. But farms are under enormous economic stress, as well as the physical stresses brought on by climate change. Hudson Valley farms have an opportunity to improve their own efficiency, economy and resilience by working in a coordinated way to reduce energy use and emissions, adopt more efficient methods such as precision agriculture and whole-farm planning, and sequester carbon in plants and soils.
Most of these methods are in some use, at least in demonstration projects. But farmers need proof of concept under conditions like the ones they deal with. They also need technical and financial support to cover costs and risks associated with new practices. Farm assistance agencies like Cornell Cooperative Extension and the USDA Soil and Water Conservation Districts, working alongside nonprofits such as Scenic Hudson, the American Farmland Trust, and the Hudson Valley Food System Coalition, are developing and refining helpful programs to strengthen the farm and food economies in an increasingly coordinated manner. They should continuously improve these programs in consultation with farmers to make sure they are relevant and accessible to small and new farmers, and seek out additional funding streams through new approaches to pay for durable carbon dioxide removal. Allied organizations can help at any point in this system, whether by supporting soil health funding, starting a farm-to-table restaurant or by raising funding for a new voluntary carbon market.
This coalition will facilitate a Land and Water Resource Network to stay on top of emerging issues and opportunities to support sustainable and regenerative agriculture.
Who Cares? A Partial List of Stakeholders:
Hudson to Housatonic Partnership
Native Plant Network c/o Hilltop Hanover Farm
https://www.hilltophanoverfarm.org
NY Department of State, Local Waterfront Revitalization Program
https://dos.ny.gov/2022-2023-local-waterfront-revitalization-program
New York Land Trust Atlas
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=25a45f5272de4cdf8e4f9c3d3eef60f1
New York Planning Federation
Planting Westchester
https://www.plantingwestchester.org
Scenic Hudson
Northeast Carbon Alliance
https://www.northeastcarbonalliance.org/
Hudson River Valley Greenway