Eerie ghost forest planted in New York to show effects of climate change

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The famed artist and architect draws attention to climate change’s biodiversity loss with a forest of dying Atlantic cedars in New York

In Manhattan’s bustling Flatiron District, 49 coastal Atlantic cedars – each around 40ft tall, leafless branches grasping at the sky – tower over Madison Square Park’s usually flat, grassy plain. The spectral forest, a new installation by the artist and architect Maya Lin, looms like a jarring holdout from winter – barren, save for smattering of lichen on each trunk, a stark contrast to the verdant six-acre park’s late-spring growth and the clean lines of the skyscrapers overhead

The urban forest recalls the island’s pre-city past as a dense woodland teeming with birdsong and animals larger than rats, and stands as a sort of slow-rolling funeral – the 49 trees, all about 80 years old, are still technically alive but will die completely within about two years, the victim of saltwater tree rot from rising sea levels in New Jersey’s coastal Pine Barrens region.

Lin’s Ghost Forest  takes it name from the ecological phenomenon in which large swaths of woodland are killed off at once by rapid environmental degradation, be it invasive species or saltwater inundation as sea levels rise. Coastal cedars such as the 49 Lin calls her “gentle giants” used to abound on the eastern seaboard, but habitat loss and climate change have hemmed the species into now just a mere 50,000 acres.

With Ghost Forest, Lin has constructed a striking, meditative memorial to biodiversity loss and the ecological ravages of climate change, a literally dying shadow of Manhattan’s wooded past that also lends itself to a midday stroll or picnic.

The forest is also accompanied by numerous resources for nature-based solutions to climate disaster.  “I didn’t just want to talk about, ‘Hey, this is happening,’ without offering solutions,” said Lin.

"Nature is resilient. If we give it a chance, it will come back," she added. The "Ghost Forest" piece will be removed in November, after symbolically going through all four seasons.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/maya-lin-ghost-forest-new-york-trnd/index.html, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/may/13/maya-lin-manhattan-madison-square-park

[SpiritBunny 3,685]

Honestly it looks fab xo

[TimisaMonster 31,073]

No shade but it doesn't look all that impressive or effective...a few leafless looking trees is just that and not gonna change anyone's mind walking by it about global warming...

It's sad that our ecosystems are dying but this just looks like an average park with trees with no leaves...