FIU CARTA and Miami Science Museum’s MuVE (Museum Volunteers for the Environment) in action:
Early in the morning on Saturday, May 26, over 100 eco-community activists rose to participate in the Reclamation Project’s annual mangrove restoration at Virginia Key. Volunteers from the Primary Learning Center, Palmer Trinity School, Ransom Everglades School, the Miami Science Museum, and a wide variety of schools and groups came together to help restore the mangrove forests that once thrived in Miami, which have been whittled away by development and ecological neglect. Thousands of seedlings have been planted since the Reclamation Project was launched on Earth Day in 2006 by the Miami Science Museum. FIU Artist-in-Residence Xavier Cortada has worked extensively with the Museum to expand the Project throughout Miami.
The Reclamation Project’s original objective was to create a participatory eco-art project that brought together the local community to embrace the unique ecosystem that exists here, and to rebuild the mangrove forests that protect our shoreline. Cortada’s innovative artistic viewpoint has helped to develop the project into a nationally recognized and lauded restoration event. Currently, the National Science Foundation is exhibiting Cortada’s Reclamation Project work as part of the Ecological Reflections Exhibit at their headquarters outside of Washington, D.C. The exhibit has been running since February and will close on June 15, 2013.
Picture gallery of the Restoration day and more information on the Reclamation Project can be found here.
