“Research has shown that a belt of trees 50 to 100 feet wide between a residential and industrial area will absorb and filter, most of the noise, smoke and dust. Trees and shrubs of dense texture, that is, those having small leaves closely packed together, are most effective because they have more openings per square fool between the leaves and branches than do large smooth-leaved plants. These openings diffuse and break up the sounds. However, some of the large-leaved plants having hairy, wrinkled or rough leaf surfaces, such as the sycamore, are also effective.
When trees are used, a barrier of shrubs should be placed near the base of the trunks to; catch the sound waves passing between.” (Stevenson, 1970)
As the City of Saskatoon grows, Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area (Urban Regional park) and George Genereux Urban Regional Park will be joined by seven new city neighbourhoods and 70,000 residents. Additionally, an commercial/industrial and employment sector will be astride the greenspace.
“When today’s elder generation-even the middle generation— was growing up, nature, with woods and swamps and gravel roadways, was often an enemy. Escaping from nature’s threats was a major challenge, and the major role of the home was to provide escape from her forces. Homes were built large and strong to give protection from nature, and were designed to accommodate most of the activities of family life within their walls. Not so today. Now the problem we face is to bring America’s families back to a natural environment in the face of all the concrete and asphalt and glass and smoke and mechanism and noise and congestion with which we spend our days… ‘Since we have subdued the forces of nature,’ they [the American Association of Nurserymen] say, ‘we have to do battle with our own technology to bring nature back into out lives.’ There was a need, a few decades ago, for residential architecture that was primarily intended to provide a barrier against nature. Now we have to open our walls and welcome nature back into our cities with all her gifts of order and form, rhythms, and special relationships— gifts in short supply in modern urban conditions.
‘Nature, once an adversary to be brought into captivity,” the nursery industry says, “is now being recognized as a friend … a vital, life-saving, healing friend.’
Trees and bushes and plants are nature’s gift to improve the part of the world in which each of us lives,” the nursery industry people say. ‘Plants help capture the impurities in the air, contribute to a breathable atmosphere, screen out noise pollution, and feed the earth.’
The nursery industry has adopted the phrase ‘Green Survival’ to encompass their philosophy regarding the role of plant materials in the environment. Survival, they say, is possible in the face of the many challenges to the ecology. And because so much that can protect and improve our environment has to do with nature’s gifts of green, growing plants and trees and shrubs and flowers, the color of survival is mostly green.
Green Survival. It depends on you!” (Eifert, 1977)
Humanity was “programmed” to live in a world with plant life and the balance of nature it provides. Restoring and maintaining that balance is a matter of ‘Green Survival.’ “(‘Green Survival ‘Time, 1977)
Bibliography
Eifert, Larry (1977), Bring Natural Environment Back Home, Vol. 68 No. 5, September October 1977, California Garden Republished online by Internet Archive, retrieved July 11 2019
‘Green Survival’ Time, Fitchburg, Massachusetts: Sentinel and Enterprise. Republished online by Newspaper Archive, May 3, 1977, retrieved July 11 2019
Stevenson, Tom (June 11 1970), A Way to Fight Pollution and Noise: Plant Greenery, Winnipeg Free Press republished online Winnipeg Free Press Archives, p. 12, retrieved July 11 2019
For directions as to how to drive to “George Genereux” Urban Regional Park
For directions on how to drive to Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
For more information:
Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area is located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada north of Cedar Villa Road, within city limits, in the furthest south west area of the city. 52° 06′ 106° 45′
Addresses:
Part SE 23-36-6 – Afforestation Area – 241 Township Road 362-A
Part SW 23-36-6 – SW Off-Leash Recreation Area (Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area ) – 355 Township Road 362-A
S ½ 22-36-6 Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area (West of SW OLRA) – 467 Township Road 362-A
NE 21-36-6 “George Genereux” Afforestation Area – 133 Range Road 3063
Wikimapia Map: type in Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
Google Maps South West Off Leash area location pin at parking lot
Web page: https://stbarbebaker.wordpress.com
Where is the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area? with map
Where is the George Genereux Urban Regional Park (Afforestation Area)? with map
Facebook Group Page: Users of the George Genereux Urban Regional Park
Facebook group page : Users of the St Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
You Tube Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
You Tube George Genereux Urban Regional Park
Please help protect / enhance your afforestation areas, please contact the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. (e-mail)
Support the afforestation areas with your donation or membership ($20.00/year). Please donate by paypal using the e-mail friendsafforestation AT gmail.com, or by using e-transfers Please and thank you! Your donation and membership is greatly appreciated. Members e-mail your contact information to be kept up to date!
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“St. Barbe’s unique capacity to pass on his enthusiasm to others. . . Many foresters all over the world found their vocations as a result of hearing ‘The Man of the Trees’ speak. I certainly did, but his impact has been much wider than that. Through his global lecture tours, St. Barbe has made millions of people aware of the importance of trees and forests to our planet.” Allan Grainger
“The science of forestry arose from the recognition of a universal need. It embodies the spirit of service to mankind in attempting to provide a means of supplying forever a necessity of life and, in addition, ministering to man’s aesthetic tastes and recreational interests. Besides, the spiritual side of human nature needs the refreshing inspiration which comes from trees and woodlands. If a nation saves its trees, the trees will save the nation. And nations as well as tribes may be brought together in this great movement, based on the ideal of beautifying the world by the cultivation of one of God’s loveliest creatures – the tree.” ~ Richard St. Barbe Baker.
“I believed that God has lent us the Earth. It belongs as much to those who come after us as to us, and it ill behooves us by anything we do or neglect, to deprive them of benefits which are in our power to bequeath.” Richard St. Barbe Baker
“A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.” – Elton Trueblood
Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus)
Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area. George Genereux Urban Regional Park. 