BFP #1: Urban Forest from Mountain to River

The Bomunsan Forest Protocols (BFPs) suggest how the ecological cities of tomorrow might look, if we listened more closely to our elder trees.

In the hillside forests not too deep or too far from the city, you can still hear the hum of traffic, a few horns honking, an eruption of cheers as the baseball team hits a double with bases loaded and one out remaining. Yet, you can also hear a Redstart. He is curious about you, but hides himself, just enough that his orange breast flickers in and out of the tree branches.

Somehow, in this place just a few minutes walk from the edge of the city, biodiversity erupts. Many of the species here are rarely heard or seen in the city parks, gardens, or street trees. For the Redstart, I guess they don’t like the noise, or the pollution, and they are probably not so fond of prowling street cats either. But somehow they like to stay close enough to the margins of a city to catch sight and sound of the action.

Waving to the Redstart, I nod goodbye. He will not follow me as I walk down from the forest to the sidewalk, and along a row of neighborhood shops which lead me to the main car thoroughfare.

The fact that there is a line where forest ends and the city begins, and that this line is never disputed as a fact of life, is disconcerting. It is not only disconcerting for the forest-dwelling birds, but for the general wellness of this entire neighborhood, humans included.

A continuous and diverse forested zone within the city provides innumerable benefits that we rarely acknowledge. Some of these benefits include reduced urban flooding, temperature moderation, pollution and carbon absorption, habitat for a multitude of species, and a long list of health benefits — both physical and psychological — for humans.

Although small parks and street trees are important parts of an urban ecology, most of the above benefits apply somewhat less to individual trees than they do to interconnected forest ecosystems. In order for cities to realize the greatest benefit then, true forests and meadows need space to weave their way through the urban landscape, from mountain to river.

If we gave some room for this to happen in our cities, if we disputed the validity of that forest-city line just a little bit, it would open the potential for tremendous positive impact on cities and people. Maybe that cute and curious little Redstart would follow me around a bit longer, too.

WHAT IS A BFP? The Bomunsan Forest Protocols (BFPs) were developed as part of A City Designed by Trees, an ecological exhibition commissioned for the 2022 Daejeon Biennale ‘City Project’. The protocols suggest urban planning concepts that 1) are ecologically sound, and 2) can help facilitate communication between humans and nature in the long-term.

Though they are inspired by the forests of Bomunsan in Daejeon Korea, these protocols are broadly applicable to cities around the world. We encourage you to share them, and also to transform and adapt them to your own urban ecological conditions.

In the coming weeks, I will feature each “BFP” in turn here. If you are already signed up for The Possible City, these will be your weekly stories.

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