"Madrid’s government [has placed] Hundreds of birdhouses and 'insect hotels' around the city" to increase biodiversity
CL:
The flagship project of Madrid’s quest for biodiversity is centered on the Manzanares River, a modest stream that flows across the city, and that has suffered from decades of bad ideas. In the 1950s, urban planners built seven floodgates along the river to raise the water level so it would look more like the prominent rivers of London, Rome, and Paris.
Lofty expectations soon gave way to a 130-foot-wide, 6.5-foot-deep, greenish—sometimes stinky—still-water plate along a four-plus-mile channel.
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Now, the Manzanares is no more than about 11 inches deep, but life is booming on the river banks, and the sandy islands of sediment between the natural meanders are covered in bulrushes, reeds, and young willows.
Related:
A new community park will open where the Los Angeles River and Caballero Creek meet in Tarzana
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The swath of green land is the result of a $750,000 city bond fund, and will be converted from what officials say is a 1.6-acre underused site off of Lindley Avenue, between Victory Boulevard and Erwin Street.
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The wetlands will be used by the biology classes and by the larger Tarzana community.
