October 7, 2010
The Master of Landscape Architecture program at Temple University Ambler and Temple’s Fox School of Business are collaborating on a study of properties owned by Heritage Conservancy.
 On a recent Friday and Saturday, students in Temple University’s new Master of Landscape Architecture (MLArch) program found themselves not in a classroom but camping out in the lush fields and woodlands of the 192-acre Lindsay Tract in Warwick Township, Bucks County.
The trip wasn’t a break from regular studies; it was an important part of connecting with and studying woodland properties owned by Heritage Conservancy, a not-for-profit conservation organization that specializes in open space preservation, planning for sustainable communities, natural resource protection, adaptive reuse, and wildlife habitat restoration.
The Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture, part of Temple’s School of Environmental Design, has partnered with the Fox School of Business’ MBA program to study the economic potential of Heritage’s woodland sites while maintaining a commitment to environmental protection and restoration.
A team of Fox MBA students are working in small teams as part of Fox’s Enterprise Management Consulting (EMC) program, a required capstone consulting experience, to develop a self-financing and ecologically renewing sustainable woodlands program for 50 Heritage Conservancy-owned properties.
“They are exploring strategies for ‘conservation economics’ — unlocking the economic potential of the woodlands while preserving, and in some cases restoring, the environmental health of the properties,” said Dr. Mary Myers, Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture, which began offering the Master of Landscape Architecture with a concentration on ecological landscape restoration during the Fall 2010 semester. “The Fox School approached us about handling the environmental analysis of the properties and we felt it would be a very good project for our new Woodland Design Studio. It is a very challenging project — it has the potential to be a pioneering example of how ecological understanding can facilitate better long term business decisions for particular sites.”
With the MLArch students’ inventory and recommendations for sustainable harvesting and use on the Lindsay Tract, EMC students will craft a business plan — inspired but not limited by the tract design — for a novel model for regenerating woodlands while garnering revenues for the project and the conservancy as a whole, essentially sustaining the woodlands as well as Heritage.
EMC Program Managing Director TL Hill and Louise Tritton, a new project manager with a PhD in forest ecology and extensive experience as a forester, environmental consultant and conservationist, are supervising the Fox students.
According to Cliff David, President of Heritage Conservancy, the conservation organization’s goal with the project is to “inventory the physical resources of our woodland properties — the soil types, vegetation, water systems.”
 “We’d like to do an in depth analysis of each property. We hope that it will provide the Conservancy with potential sustainable revenue streams to better manage the ecosystems of the properties,” said David, a member of the School of Environmental Design’s Board of Visitors. “We hope that this study will become a model for other properties and believe that other individuals, land trusts, and conservancies could benefit from this research.”
Under the direction of Dr. Myers and John Munro, Instructor in Landscape Architecture and Horticulture who is teaching a course in Northeastern Woodland Ecosystems, MLArch students are studying the existing conditions of the Lindsay Tract site in addition to developing potential environmentally sustainable uses for the location that wouldn’t negatively impact the biodiversity of the land.
“We are creatively thinking about opportunities that Heritage Conservancy can convert to financial advantage at the Lindsay Farm site while also trying to translate some of those ideas into revenue producers for other Heritage-owned properties,” said Master of Landscape Architecture student Tracey Carney. “One of the realities that conservancies across the country are facing is not only maintaining the preserved land, but also bringing these properties back to healthy, functioning ecosystems — that takes a good deal of capital. It is a real challenge for non-profits like Heritage Conservancy to balance their goal of preserving and restoring land within their community with the financial implications of that goal.”
Developing a detailed design for the tract “will help to ground the economic modeling and help to focus the inventory tool,” Hill said.
“At the same time, the concrete design will prove useful for marketing, fundraising, and developing the kind of pilot that builds momentum for the bigger vision,” he said.
Carney said MLArch students are currently engaged in creating a comprehensive inventory of the site — dozens of samples were taken during the recent overnight visit. Students are also visiting other locations where the woodland ecosystems are presently in better ecological condition, such as French Creek State Park, to help in developing ecological designs for the Heritage locations, added Dr. Myers
 “We are looking at everything from cultural and historic context to the hydrology, geology, and plant communities. When you are trying to evaluate a location, it is a real gift to be given a huge chunk of time to learn the site,” said Carney. “Before coming to Lindsay we had put together aerial and topographic maps that helped us to focus our efforts. Because the site is so large, we broke down into groups to explore the area systematically, covering upland forest areas, the floodplain and wetland areas, and the edges between the agricultural fields and the forest.”
The Master of Landscape Architecture students presented their initial findings to Heritage Conservancy and the Fox School of Business students involved in the study during a meeting in October.
According to Hill, initial ideas for generating revenues from the Heritage properties include woodland food and nursery products, forest gardening, regenerative forestry and woodland-based services, such as a ropes course, canopy trails, and education or retreat space. The strategy and business model phase of the project will start with meetings with staff and board members to devise a strategy, accounting for both risk and reward, he added.
The EMC team will then generate a detailed implementation plan supported by financial models. The plan, expected by March 2011, will be packaged to support requests for start-up capital and strategic partnerships.
Dr. Myers said the collaboration between the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture and the Fox School of Business has been extremely beneficial.
“All of the students involved are very creative thinkers,” she said. “I think this is a great opportunity to test these sustainable concepts and values to see what makes the most sense for these sites. I think this project will serve as a prototype for the conservancy and for other sites. I’m not aware of this being done anywhere else in the country — landscape architects, business people, and ecologists talking and developing a viable plan together.”
For more information on the Master of Landscape Architecture program at Temple University Ambler, visit www.ambler.temple.edu/la-hort. To contact Mary Myers: 267-468-8108 or duffyj@temple.edu.
For more information on the Fox School of Business, visit www.fox.temple.edu. To contact TL Hill: 215-204-4115 or blausch@temple.edu.
For more information on Heritage Conservancy, visit www.heritageconservancy.org.
|
