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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.

Give the Gift of Parks, Trails and Greenspaces

We can all help create a livable and ecologically sustainable metropolitan region. Your contribution helps us meet our mission to ensure that parks, regional trail systems, greenways and Greenspaces are integrated with the built environment in the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan region and to promote urban Greenspace efforts nationally and internationally.

To make an secure online contribution, click here.

Or send a check made out to the Urban Greenspaces Institute, and mail to Urban Greenspaces Institute, P O Box 6903, Portland, OR 97228-6903

Birdwatching on the Springwater on the Willamette Trail, Holgate Channel
Photo: Mike Houck

If you would like to learn more about how you can help please contact:

Mike Houck
Executive Director
Phone: 503-319-7155
Fax: 503-725-3166
mikehouck@urbangreenspaces.org
www.urbangreenspaces.org

Office: 459 Cramer Hall, Geography Department, Portland State University

We lead tours to show examples of innovative stormwater projects such as this retrofit at SW 12th and Montgomery at Portland State University.
Photo: Mike Houck

"In the long run, this mass estrangement from things natural bodes ill for the care of the earth. If we are to forge new links to the land, we must resist the extinction of experience. We must save not only the wilderness but the vacant lots, the ditches as well as the canyonlands, and the woodlots along with the old growth."

-- Robert Michael Pyle, The Thunder Tree, 1993

Click here for contact information for the Institute.