New Westminster Environmental Almanac (2917 ... - Douglas College

Parks and Greenspaces
Parks and Greenspaces
For a highly developed city, New Westminster has significant amount of
parks or greenspace. There are a total of 142 hectares (350.18 acres) of
parks and greenspaces in the City, which equals close to 10% of the total
City area. This includes city parks, community parks, neighbourhood
parks, natural areas, traffic islands, trails, school grounds, and village
greens. Most people agree that greenspaces are desirable and key
components of any community. Whether it is a warm, sunny summer
afternoon with bright flowers and full green leaves or it is a crisp,
blustery fall morning and the trees are decorated in sombre orange,
yellow and burgundy; it is a pleasure for most of us just to look upon a
park. Parks, however, serve purposes other than just breaking up the
concrete of an urban area. For people, parks:
Provide recreation space
Improve neighbourhood appearance
Remove air pollutants
Increase economic value of surrounding areas
Act as noise barriers
Promote neighbourliness
New Westminster is a relatively small City bounded on three sides by
other municipalities and on the fourth side by the Fraser River. Because
of this, there is very little undeveloped natural land that other cities in the
GVRD have the fortune to possess. The result of this is that New
Westminster, in particular, must rely heavily on its parks to provide
environmental benefits.
Plant Habitat – Vegetation is the foundation for most terrestrial food
webs and therefore is the key component of wildlife habitat. The larger
and more diverse the vegetative biomass of an area is, the greater the
amount and diversity of wildlife that area can support.
Wildlife Habitat – The various types of vegetation found in parks provide
food and shelter for all types of wildlife. Because of the space, parks are
able to support larger populations and a greater diversity of species than
is possible in smaller green areas, such as backyards. This helps to
maintain robust natural communities that can withstand disturbance, a
key characteristic for wildlife in the urban setting.
24