Fluent Essays

Please make a 1-page reflection on these two articles and cite them using APA style. (double space, 12 font size, Times New Roman)12/7/2020 New York Moves to Stop Foraging in City’s Parks - The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/nyregion/new-york-moves-to-stop-foraging-in-citys-parks.html 1/3 By Lisa W. Foderaro July 29, 2011 Maybe it is the spiraling cost of food in a tough economy or the logical next step in the movement to eat locally. Whatever the reason, New Yorkers are increasingly fanning out across the city’s parks to hunt and gather edible wild plants, like mushrooms, American ginger and elderberries. Now parks officials want them to stop. New York’s public lands are not a communal pantry, they say. In recent months, the city has stepped up training of park rangers and enforcement-patrol officers, directing them to keep an eye out for foragers and chase them off. “If people decide that they want to make their salads out of our plants, then we’re not going to have any chipmunks,” said Maria Hernandez, director of horticulture for the Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit group that manages Central Park. Plants are not the only things people are taking. In Prospect Park in Brooklyn last week, park rangers issued four summonses to two people for illegal fishing. Although officials say such poaching is not widespread, park advocates say taking fish and turtles for food is not uncommon, and some have reported evidence of traps designed to snare wildfowl. Foraging used to be a quirky niche, filled most notably by “Wildman” Steve Brill, who for years has led foraging tours in the Northeast, including in Central Park. (He now sells a foraging app, too.) But foragers today are an eclectic bunch, including downtown hipsters, recent immigrants, vegans and people who do not believe in paying for food. Even those who would never dream of plucking sassafras during a walk in the park can read about it. The magazine Edible Manhattan has an “Urban Forager” column (as does The New York Times’s City Room blog). And the current issue of Martha Stewart Living features a colorful spread about foraging on Ms. Stewart’s property in Maine — but at least all those plants belong to her. While it has long been against the rules to collect or destroy plants in the city’s parks, with potential fines of $250, the city has preferred education to enforcement. “It’s listed in the prohibited uses of the parks, and the simple reason is that if everyone went out and collected whatever it is — a blackberry or wildflower — the parks couldn’t sustain that,” said Sarah Aucoin, director of urban park rangers for the Department of Parks and Recreation. Officials have not gone as far as posting signs in Central Park that foraging is prohibited, for fear they would serve as arrows pointing to the most delectable areas. Ms. Hernandez of the park conservancy would take a reporter on a tour of edible plants only on the condition that their locations not be revealed. Enjoy Park Greenery, City Says, but Not as Salad Ruby Harris, 9, of Brooklyn, inspecting an edible pl12/7/2020 Food apartheid: the root of the problem with Americas groceries | Society | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/15/food-apartheid-food-deserts-racism-inequality-america-karen-washington-interview 1/4 Food apartheid: the root of the problem with Americas groceries Anna Brones Food justice activist Karen Washington wants us to move away from the term ‘food desert’, which doesn’t take into account the systemic racism permeating America’s food system Tue 15 May 2018 12.59 EDT A merica’s sustainable food movement has been steadily growing, challenging consumers to truly consider where our food comes from, andinspiring people to farm, eat local, and rethink our approaches to food policy. But at the same time, the movement is predominantly white,and often neglects the needs and root problems of diverse communities.Issues of economic inequality and systemic racism permeate our national food system. The movement’s primary focus has been on finding solutions to “food deserts” – defined as areas empty of good-quality, affordable fresh food – by working to ensure that affected neighborhoods have better access. But some advocates, and studies, have argued that the proximity of a well-stocked grocery store is not enough of a solution given this country’s elaborate food problems. Farm subsidies in the United States go predominantly to white farmers, which has led a group of black farmers to sue the US government for discrimination. Food pantries, which distribute food directly to those in need, are stigmatized. Our subsidized food system, as the activist and community organizer Karen Washington points out in the interview that follows, “skews the cost and value of food”. Washington has been battling for food justice for three decades. Before taking up the cause, she worked as a physical therapist, and saw many of her patients, predominantly people of color, suffering from diabetes, obesity, and hypertension. (More than one-third of American adults, and 48\% of African American adults, are obese.) Treatment always involved medication and surgery as opposed to prevention, and Washington knew there had to be a better way. She moved to the Bronx, in New York, in the mid-1980s and became a vocal community gardener. Since that time, Washington has won a James Beard Foundation Leadership Award, been invited to the Obama White House for her involvement with New York’s Botanical Garden, and been called “urban farming’s de facto godmother”. She’s also worked to transform the Bronx’s empty lots into spaces where food can grow, helped launch a farmers’ market, and, in relentlessly engaging her community, has remained focused on the intersections of food and issues like poverty, racism, a lack of healthcare, and joblessness. In other words, Washington has been around the block. What she found is that there weren’t very many people who looked like her with active roles in the food system. To bring additional voices to the table, she