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Ross Island Vision Team: Envisioning Ross Island
The Institute has produced, with its partners at the Willamette Riverkeeper, Audubon Society of Portland, Greenworks landscape architecture, architects, and landscape architects a plan for Ross Island, Envisioning Ross Island (.pdf), which lays out scenarios for how Ross and its sister islands Hardtack, East and Toe, might be managed as a unit with the Holgate Channel and the 160-acre city-owned Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge as an urban wildlife refuge complex, public natural area park, and place to contemplate nature in the heart of downtown Portland.

Bi-State Trail Plan Unveiled The long awaited Bi-State Trail Plan was released at a meeting of The Intertwine Alliance on April 9th in downtown Vancouver, Washington. The plan contains information regarding the values of a regional trail network and displays 37 regional trail elements of the proposed regional system. The plan was created by the Urban Greenspaces Institute, National Park Service's Rivers and Trails Conservation Assistance Program, Metro Sustainability Center and Vancouver-Clark Parks and Recreation. To read the plan click here.

Oregon Public Broadcasting features Portland Memorial Mausoleum mural project. On April 15th OPB's Art Beat Program ran a 10 minute special feature on the 50,000 square foot wetland mural that the Urban Greenspaces Institute collaborated with ArtFX Murals to produce on the Portland Memorial Mausoleum overlooking 160-acre Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge. Click here to view OPBs video.

Urban Greenspaces Institute participates in creating an agricultural and natural resources map for Metro's Urban and Rural Reserves planning.

October 2nd and 3rd Dedication of Portland Memorial Mausoleum and Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge Mural, the nation's largest hand painted mural
[See photo]
[Download invitation]

UGI National Advisory Board member, Jon Kulser , honored by the Association of Wetland Scientists with Lifetime Achievement Award

Institute Director Mike Houck receives The Garden Club of America Club Conservation Commendation from the Portland Garden Club, Wednesday, June 11, 2009

Memorial Mausoleum Mural Completed!

Quiet, No Wake Zone For Holgate Channel and Ross Island

Wild in the City Field Trips - Exploring Regional Greenspaces by Kayak, Bike and Foot

Urban Green, A Radio Documentary on Green Planning in Portland.

Urban Ecosystem Research Consortium

2008 Urban Ecosystem Symposium participants.

UERC encourages dialogue among researchers.

The Urban Greenspaces Institute is a founding member of the Urban Ecosystem Research Consortium, which was established to advance the state of the science of urban ecosystems and improve our understanding of them, with a focus on the Portland/Vancouver metropolitan region, by fostering communication and collaboration among researchers, managers and citizens at academic institutions, public agencies, local governments, non-profit organizations, and other interested groups. Activities of the UERC include:

Organizing annual Urban Ecology and Conservation symposia;
Coordinating working group meetings;
Maintaining a contact list for networking;
Providing a web site to provide access to UERC-related information;
Hosting an urban ecosystem focused listserve.

"Marked economy in municipal development may be effected by laying out parkways and parks to embrace streams that carry at times more water than can be taken care of by drain pipes of ordinary size. Thus brooks or little rivers which would otherwise become nuisances that would some day have to be put in large underground conduits at enormous expense, may be made the occasion for delightful local pleasure grounds or attractive parkways."

-- John Charles Olmsted, 1902 Report to Portland Park Board

Click here for contact information for the Institute.