Pollinate NYC

PROGRAM

Opening Prayers with representatives from the Ramapough Lenape Nation
Panel on the city & regional food systems, indigenous food ways, urban pollination, food security and community resiliency.
Cultural exchange with project partners from 6 nations’ Akwesasne Freedom School and the Mayan Tz’utujil Nation
Introduction to Pollinate NYC
Concert by Dream Seed
Q & A
Closing Remarks

Join us on Friday, April 25th from 11am-4pm, for Pollinate NYC, the launch of Root to Heaven’s new initiative in partnership with The New School’s Food Studies Program, Heart & Mind Festival, and Golden Drum.

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***This event is a fundraiser to support environmentally regenerative projects with Akwesasne Freedom School and Walkers for Peace.

All tickets purchased are 100% tax deductible through Root to Heaven’s 501(c)3 status.

VISION

New York City is, in both senses of the meaning of pollination, one of the “pollinator capitals” of the world. It is a haven for natural biodiversity, which is dependent on biological pollination. NYC also has the most park land in any US city, with more than 20% tree cover. Its biodiversity includes 869 rare plant species, 482 rare animal species, and 182 natural community types across the 5 boroughs of the City.

Cultural pollination in NYC includes art, music, policy, advocacy, fashion, and diverse cultural movements from around the world. The city that never sleeps has attracted and continues to attract some of the most brilliant luminaries ever known to the world. Every year millions of people visit NYC to chase a dream and take the inspiration home, extending cultural pollination beyond the city.

Yet while the city attracts visitors and residents from all nations and continents, social, financial, and cultural disparities between neighborhoods and boroughs continue growing. And while NYC continues to be among the most diverse cities across the globe, the city’s biodiversity is threatened. Neighbors don’t speak, streets are dirty, the air polluted, and green spaces are shrinking.

Research shows that disconnecting from nature can negatively affect society by leading to decreased mental and physical well-being, reduced environmental awareness, increased stress levels, lower levels of pro-environmental behaviors, and potentially even contributing to social issues like increased conflict and violence. When people lose a sense of connection to something larger than themselves, their environment, and their community; this is often referred to as "nature deficit disorder." Spending time in nature, in the open spaces, gardens and parks across the city can foster a sense of community and connection among people and a sense of belonging to place.

Long before the built environment rose as a dense grid of canyons and skyscrapers, Manhattan was home to the Lenape Natives. Its Munsee name of manaháhtaan means the place to gather (the wood) for bows.

Surrounded by a brackish estuary and tidal rivers, NYC’s marshy, grassland soil was originally a vibrant ecosystem teaming with biodiversity and home to over 130 native species of flora and countless fauna. “For millennia the waters and wetlands, woodlands and grasslands were inhabited by a large diversity of species. Deer, elk, moose, wood bison, black bear, fox, cougar, bobcat, and lynx roamed our forests. Beavers built dams on freshwater streams, otters made their homes in rivers and ponds. Early colonists described spring fish runs as so thick a man could walk across a river on their backs. Striped bass, shad, alewives and other river herring — these were the fish that migrated by the hundreds of thousands from the ocean and crowded into our rivers and streams to spawn in fresh inland waters.”

-Betsy McCully, New York Wildlife

It is recognized that the wisdom of the original people of this land, and that of Indigenous Peoples from across the world, holds a key piece in addressing the growing diseases of engineered modernity, industrialization, and digital distraction. In certain native dialects, there is no word for they. Identification only happens through an inclusive US. Their worldview is instructive, and so is their language.

In many cases, the Indigenous concept of the US places the same value on nature as it does on a fellow human, there is often no distinction between a child, a tree, a whale, a river, a mountain, or a grandparent. There is no distinction because the knowledge of innate connection between all species and what we deem as inanimate nature is observed and respected. The practice of living in a way that benefits 7 generations to come is widespread, with the understanding that when someone throws a stone into water, what ripples in one place will ripple everywhere.

Indigenous people are responsible for protecting 80% of the world’s biodiversity, a fact that is recognized in global treaties and policies. The neural, genetic and subatomic connectivity of species established in science was represented and recorded in ancient knowledge ways long before it was measured by modern practice.

Pollinate NYC is a multi-year, multi-layered initiative which includes:

Reforesting urban spaces.
Educational policy labs teaching food growth with native food forests.

Traditional wisdom on indigenous ways of planting and ecology
Neighborhood and community engagement to create biodiversity oases instead of food deserts.
Funding through enrollment to Practice to Policy Lab for tribal nations’ projects, cross pollinating knowledge to resources.
Food lab donations to city organizations feeding homeless and at risk populations of NYC.

We launch this initiative with partners including The New School University, Root to Heaven founder’s Alma Mater. With deep roots in Indigenous activism and assembly, alongside a rich Food Studies Program, The New School is the chosen launch pad for Pollinate NYC.

Pollinate NYC is a pilot project of a new Practice to Policy Engagement lab led by Thomas Forster, New School Food Studies part-time faculty member and urban-rural linkages specialist.

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