Nonprofit Steps Into Gap For D.C., Woodland Stewardship

Annapolis MD

28 February, 2022

1:19 PM

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By Whitney Pipkin, the Chesapeake Bay Journal Feb 24, 2022 Taking a walk in the woods isn't as simple as it should be for residents of Ward 8 in the District of Columbia. Although the community in Southeast DC has nearly 600 publicly owned acres of forests scattered across an otherwise urban landscape — more than some of the wealthier wards in a city known for its expansive tree canopy — few of them are truly accessible for recreation. Litter and a lack of trails make most of the woods uninviting, and low to no maintenance budgets for the local and federal agencies that own them leaves some areas virtually entombed by invasive vines come summer But a scrappy nonprofit that's been picking up steam since 2018 has stepped into that gap. What began as a series of volunteer cleanups has morphed into Ward 8 Woods, a small organization that hires local residents to help maintain the woods while advocating for a future with more trails and more visitors. Its founder and executive director, Nathan Harrington, sees the lack of care for and access to the ward's woods as a symptom of bigger problems for the neighborhood. But sprucing up these areas could be part of the larger solution, too. "I think a lot of it has to do with systemic racial and class inequality. It's a case of people who don't have the financial and political capital to volunteer and advocate" for the land, said Harrington, a former teacher who has lived in the community since 2009. "The wealthier the neighborhood, the better maintained the parks are." Eighty-eight percent of Ward 8 residents are Black, and 33% live below the federal poverty line, according to census data. For the 573 acres of woodlands in the community, there are a mere 1.4 miles of trails winding through them. For comparison, the 1,754-acre Rock Creek Park in northcentral DC has 36 miles of trails. About 70% of Ward 8's woodlands are located on National Park Service land, originally set aside in part to preserve earthwork forts used for defenses during the Civil War. A parks plan for the city at one time envisioned the land around each of these hilltops becoming a greenway encircling the city, but the parks in Ward 8, so far, feature few amenities or trails. The Suitland woods, on land owned by the DC Department of Transportation, is one of the places the nonprofit is advocating for a much longer trail, about 3.5 miles in all, that could wind through the trees along the busy road and give residents a safe place to walk. But on a wintry Monday morning, four park stewards employed by the nonprofit had a full day's work ahead of them to clean it up. "Today, we're gonna start right where that chair is," Harrington said as he handed out trash bags to the crew, pointing to a discarded armchair perched at the edge of a strip of woods behind apartment buildings. The nonprofit's truck, which already held a discarded baby seat and a shopping cart from the previous cleanup, quickly filled up. Harrington said the truck hauls away, on a weekly basis, about 5,000 pounds of trash that's been illegally dumped or littered in woods like these. Some apartment buildings, he said, don't have adequate trash-hauling contracts, leaving residents challenged for ways to discard items that don't fit in the unit's dumpster (Now, they can call Ward 8 Woods for free help hauling things away). "Some of the areas, we just keep coming back to. You'd be surprised that somebody takes the time to take some of this stuff deep into the woods," said Dalton Wilson, a park steward and driver who makes several trips to the dump each day. Before this, he worked at Jimmy John's. "I like [the work], because we're cleaning the environment." That day, crew members also found a driver's license, which they would try to return to its owner, and a duffel bag filled with family photos and Marine Corps records. As they focused on the edge of the woods, where trash thrown out car windows tends to accumulate, Harrington worked farther into the young forest, hacking at invasive multiflora rose and honeysuckle vines that were choking out its small trees. Removing invasive plants threatening forest health goes hand in hand with removing the trash — and both are quick to return. Another park steward who prefers to go only by "O.T." said he has a hard time watching someone litter now that he plays a role in cleaning it up. "I'm not just doing this for the looks," he said, holding a plastic bottle in his trash-fetching tongs, "so I'm not gonna let nobody destroy it." Research indicates one reason people litter is because they feel a lack of connection to the environment around them. To tackle that, Ward 8 Woods has a "Don't Trash DC" campaign that encourages residents to feel a sense of stewardship for woods near them. Signs promoting the program say, "Don't mess with DC" and "Trash doesn't Go-Go on the ground," a reference to the popular genre of music that originated in the District. Chuck Jenkins, Jr., a park steward and spokesman for Ward 8 Woods, said he's learned more about the outdoors during his 14 months with the organization. He's started to pass it on to his almost 7-year-old son. "I teach him what's invasive, like the English ivy," Jenkins said, "and I show him what can harm you — like poison ivy — and what can't." Walking through forests can reduce anxiety and depression, improve immunity and boost healthy antioxidants, research shows. Doing so became even more vital during the COVID pandemic, as city dwellers sought refuge on trails in the nearest stand of trees. Trash-strewn as they often are — with traffic whirring by and helicopters thundering overhead — it might be hard to imagine some of Ward 8's woods having the same ameliorative effect. But Harrington points to their inherent value. "Even in their neglected and degraded state, these woods still serve an important function. They're a buffer for noise, they soak up water runoff and break up heat islands," he said. "Yeah, this is not a wilderness. It's never going to be totally pristine, but what makes these woods special is the fact that tens of thousands of people live close to them." The Chesapeake Bay Journal is a nonprofit news organization covering environmental issues in the Bay region. Sign up for a free subscription at BayJournal.com.