Ecology Mapping

Using ecology mapping or species identification tours as an organizing tool, GoFB calls attention to the relationship between residential displacement and threatened wetland ecologies.

Our Tours

Beginning in February 2021, GoFB, Flushing Anti-Displacement Alliance (FADA), and the Urban Studies Department at Queens College organized monthly tours to identify and document Flushing Creek species. Our tours take place at the Flushing Terminal Forest on the east of Flushing Creek and the restored wetlands on the west side of the creek. Participants engage in community science by using iNaturalist to catalogue species as part of the “Biodiversity of the Flushing Creek Estuary” project.

Through our tours, we are able to highlight the area’s existing and robust ecology—ecology that will be impacted by approved and proposed shoreline development—while also bringing attention to luxury developments slated for the waterfront. Our species identification tour guides you through the Special Flushing Waterfront District (SFWD), a development project that will add over 1,000 sewage connections to an overburdened Flushing Creek, which receives over 1 billion gallons of raw sewage and polluted stormwater every year.

In addition to further polluting the water, the private luxury development would create economic barriers to waterfront access and will destroy at 40-year old forest, which would have vast impacts on the 13-year old wetland on the opposite bank.