Archinect - News

Beavers: Nature's landscape architects

2019-07-12T15:54:00-04:00

In California and Oregon, beavers are enhancing wetlands that are critical breeding habitat for salmonids, amphibians, and waterfowl. In Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico, environmental groups have partnered with ranchers and farmers to encourage beaver activity on small streams. Watershed advocates in California are leading a campaign to have beavers removed from the state’s non-native species list, so that they can be managed as a keystone species rather than a nuisance.

Writing in Places Journal, landscape designer Stacy Passmore explores the amazing landscapes beavers create when they are allowed to fulfill their natural role as environmental engineers.

More and more, beavers and humans have become partners in reshaping the landscapes of the American west, where, Passmore reports, the aquatic mammals have been deployed to remediate defunct mines, re-wild marginal lands, and boost biodiversity as they restore wetlands and other riparian landscapes.

The beavers, according to Passmore, are "subversive animals are rewriting the landscape, changing its topography, without hardly anybody registering the change."

It's likely that in the future, humans and beavers will work together more and more, as climate change reshapes the world's natural environments. But dont count on them to fix climate change. Passmore writes: "As beavers are 'reintroduced' to more areas, we should remember that we cannot restore historic conditions. We must conceptualize a mes...

Christo abandons $15 million U.S.-based river project as protest against "landlord" Trump

2017-01-31T12:46:00-05:00

Christo's proposed silver-fabric-panel draped "Over the River" project has been in the making for about 25 years, after he started hunting for a natural host site in 1992 and then gradually garnered the neccessary official approvals and permits over the following decades for a 42-mile stretch along the Colorado River. However, the artist is abandoning the $15 million dollar project as a protest against President Trump, explaining that “The federal government is our landlord. They own the land. And I can’t do a project that benefits this landlord.” Although it's doubtful that the official landlord would appreciate the nuance and splendor of Christo's work, the people of Colorado would have undoubtedly benefitted economically from tourists.

China may dam its only free-flowing river left

2016-02-04T13:07:00-05:00

...the Nu [River is] the last remaining major watershed in China without a dam. For years, though, the local government has planned to build a series dams along the Nu, too. Entire villages have already been relocated to make way. If the dams are built, China’s last free-flowing river will turn into a series of cascading lakes.

“It’s a uniquely Chinese phenomenon,” smiled Fan. “A local government sets up an investment company, attracts investors, approves and builds its own projects with developers. All of them make enormous profits. They claim this helps alleviate poverty, but it only causes common people more problems.”

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