Event Details
For immediate release
Salem Mass.
Mack Park Farm will hold a floating wetland workshop, June 6th and 7th with rain dates June 13th and 14th, in which we will create a floating wetland in the farm’s retention pond. The farm is at the lower field of Mack Park, at 31 Grove Street in Salem. Led by Salem’s ecological artist Terry Bastian, “Turtle Island” is a floating wetland of flowering native plants in the shape of a turtle. This helps restore the balance of the pond by directly absorbing excess nutrients and creating habitat for zooplankton that eat algae blooms. Salem State University biology professor Lynn Fletcher and her students will help as part of a larger project to monitor the health of several ponds in the area, studying the life in them as an indicator of health. Both the students and volunteers will help build and launch the island as well as plant native wetland plants to stabilize the shoreline.
With a nod towards the Wampanoag elder Manitonquat (Medicine Story), who wrote a book of the same name contrasting the first nations perspective of a circular view of nature and the European hierarchical view of nature as an exploitable resource, this project aims to encompass a holistic and sustainable method that can help to address our current environmental crises including climate change. Bastian is a proponent of Ecological Design, the art and science of adapting human culture to nature.
All are welcome. Expect to get muddy! For more information, Terry Bastian can be reached at www.waterflowers.org. To volunteer with Mack Park Farm, contact their Facebook, Instagram or email Kerry at: kmurphy@salem.com.