Great Park Designer Plants Seeds for Restoration Ecology

MARCH 14, 2008 – IRVINE, California – Milan Mitrovich, Senior Wildlife Biologist for the Orange County Great Park will be making a presentation on restoring complex habitats and local biotic connections of the Orange County Great Park at a meeting of the Environmental Coalition for the Orange County Great Park, Friday March 14th, 2008 at 7:00 pm. The event will be held at the Irvine Ranch Water District, Multipurpose Room 15600 San Canyon, Irvine.

Dr. Mitrovich will discuss the Great Park’s natural habitat spaces. One large natural stream buried in a pipe for 60 years will be uncovered. These new habitats also will connect remnant nature reserves in costal hills and inland mountains, to allow movement of animals and seeds through the region. The design is a result of a collaboration among ecologists, landscape architects, civil and structural engineers, and architects, all who are charged with making an ecologically sustainable landscape embedded in a large metropolitan area in Southern California.

The Orange County Great Park, which is almost twice the size of New York’s Central Park, will be a major metropolitan park and the focal point of the redevelopment of the 4,700-acre former Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro. The Great Park will include extensive natural areas and open spaces in addition to recreational and cultural uses.

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Maryann Maloney
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