Green Seattle Partnership Earth Day Restoration
Seattle, April 22, 2005 - On a beautiful Earth Day, about 275 people - volunteers from the community, EarthCorps youth, Seattle Parks and Recreation staff and employees of Starbucks Coffee Company, Nokia and many more -- joined together to remove more than one acre of invasive plants and restored more than 900 feet of walking trails in Seward Park.
The effort was an activity of the Green Seattle Partnership, a public-private partnership between the City of Seattle and the Cascade Land Conservancy. The mission of the Green Seattle Partnership is to restore Seattle's 2,500 acres of forested parklands by 2025.
The forested parklands within Seward Park include more than 120 acres of old-growth forest. These trees, like the majority of Seattle's forested parklands, are in peril from the spread of English Ivy, an invasive plant. Ivy can kill a mature tree within twenty years of growth up the tree and it also covers the ground and keeps native trees from reseeding.
Earth Day volunteers removed more than an acre of ivy within Seward Park. Once the ivy is removed, it will receive annual weeding by Green Seattle Partnership volunteers and the Friends of Seward Park. After three years, the ivy will be gone, and native trees and shrubs will either seed in naturally or be replanted.
The Green Seattle Partnership is committed to taking an environmental leadership role by mobilizing community members in restoring Seattle's forested parklands. Support of this park clean-up event is also part of Starbucks' renewed commitment to creating and preserving parks throughout Western Washington.
