The Saving Green project is rooted in scientific and traditional indigenous knowledge. The project team is using mycelium “forest patches” to restore contaminated soils, beloved trees, public spaces, and essential water resources in highly industrialized and polluted urban areas. The “brain of nature”, fungal mycelium is a mutualistic element of ecosystems that fosters resilience. In particular, salt-eating mycelium help to mitigate the overabundance of inorganic salts in urban forests due to using recycled irrigation water. Adding inoculated compost and mulch to existing plantings can restore sick and dying coniferous trees, which are particularly susceptible to damage from salts.
This internship is designed to bring scientific rigor to the Saving Green project in an effort to confirm, reject, and/or evolve treatment methodologies so they may be taken up by managers of urban and community forests as a restoration strategy. The work and skills developed will include literature review, experimental and monitoring protocol design, field data collection, data analysis, and the drawing and presenting of conclusions and recommendations from the data.
