Brooklyn's Progress
December 2003

By Enrico Cullen

Think Globally, Act Locally could have been the slogan for four Shanghai journalists who recently visited New York through a program arranged by the United States Department of State.
 
After spending the morning at CBS, the journalists met at Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment where they learned about the non-profit business sector.  They were then taken on a tour of the Gowanus Canal where Kersten Hall, one of the Center’s environmental educators, demonstrated water toxicology tests and discussed the waterway’s clean-up projects.  All four journalists commented on the similarity between the Gowanus Canal and Suzhou River in Shanghai. 
 
Yue Ying, vice-chief editor for the Real Estate Times of the Jeifang Daily Group in Shanghai, focused on clean-up efforts along the Suzhou River when she was chief reporter for the Jiefang Daily.  “I was the first investigative reporter to draw attention to this terrible situation,” said Yue.  “Once people began to understand the magnitude of the problem, the clean-up began.  It was a real disaster, but now people use the river again for boating and other activities.  Even the smell is gone.”
 
Bill Whalen, an officer of the International Visitor Program at the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, has been shepherding Asian visitors around New York City for ten years.  “While it was always important to make contact with U.S. businesses, it became critical in the mid-1980’s to expose Chinese citizens to the non-profit sector.  Organizations like Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment and Green Apple Map provide further insight into what it means to work and live in a market economy.” 
 
Whalen described a “multiplier effect” when the visitors return to Shanghai, debrief at the U.S. Consulate and share their experiences with colleagues.  One very successful exchange took place with Green Apple Map and Marco Kusumawijaya from Aikon Magazine in Indonesia. 
 
Wendy Brawer created Green Apple Map in 1992 to chart New York City’s environment.  Brawer met Kusumawijaya during a 2001 International Visitor Program.  She told me that the exchange fostered a series of Green Map projects in Indonesian cities, using Green Map System’s global iconography.  The International Visitor Program is “a personal way to share what you know and learn from others,” said Brawer.  “There are people across the globe working on parallel issues, working in harmony. Sharing methodologies helps us work more effectively.”  Green Map System is preparing to launch a new atlas in February that details their locally-led projects, including Kusumawijaya’s. (www.greenmap.org/atlas)
 
Understanding the global picture through local issues is one way of making sense of a complex clean-up process.  Basil Seggos, legal investigator for Riverkeeper (http://www.riverkeeper.org/) a non-profit group that seeks to protect the environmental, recreational and commercial integrity of the Hudson River, has challenged groups along Newtown Creek to take a more serious look at the problems there.  "People sometimes think the environmental problems in China or elsewhere far surpass what we see here.  The Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek are examples of exactly the same kind of issue.  Heavy metals, oil spills, sewage overflow.  It's a pollution cocktail."
 
Perhaps Think Globally, Act Locally sounds like old language for an old problem, but tangible efforts like those of Green Apple Map appear to be creating new lines for better communication on global issues, lines that speak about local problems to local people.
 
Enrico Cullen is Director, Development & Public Affairs for the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment.