The event, one of a series of Green Infrastructure Forums and Workshops to discuss park, forest cover, open space and recreation land approaches within the metropolitan Washington region, will feature:

►   A brief overview of the "Metropolitan Washington Green Infrastructure Demonstration Project".
► A presentation on "Green Infrastructure and Livable Communities by Peggy Harwood.
►  Remarks by Anne Whiston Spirn on "Landscape Infrastructure, Natural Processes, and Community Development".

Anne Whitson Spirn is Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning at MIT.  She has worked at Wallace, McHarg, Roberts and Todd http://www.wrtdesign.com/about/values_03.html Planning and Design Firm on diverse projects, including plans for Woodlands New Community in Houston, the Toronto Central Waterfront, and a comprehensive plan for Sanibel, Florida.  Her first book, The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design, won the President's Award of Excellence from the American Society of Landscape Architects.  Her second book: The Language of Landscape (Yale 1998) extends the ideas presented in The Granite Garden and argues that the language of landscape exists with its own grammar and metaphors.  Since 1984 she has worked in inner-city neighborhoods on landscape planning and community design and development.  She is director of the West Philadelphia Landscape Project, a program that integrates teaching, research, and community service recognized by the White House Millennium Council in 1999. In 2001, Spirn was awarded the International Cosmos Prize for "contributions to the harmonious coexistence of nature and humankind."

Peggy Harwood is currently National Program Manager for the Urban & Community Forestry Staff of the USDA Forest Service in Washington, DC.  Since 1999, she has been helping the U.S. Department of Agriculture coordinate the Green Infrastructure Training Program and related activities by overseeing implementation of priority actions in partnership with The Conservation Fund and a number of federal and state agencies and other interested organizations.  Beginning this year, she will be working with partners to better integrate urban scales and examples into the green infrastructure concept as a component of actions to ensure livable communities.  Peggy has worked for the Forest Service's National Forest System serving as a program manager for the Land Management Planning, Ecosystem Management Coordination, and the Engineering Staffs.  She has coordinated community-based planning for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and interagency activities for weather and land satellite programs in the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  Before joining the federal government, Peggy was an associate director at the Council of State Planning Agencies in Washington, D.C. and a program manager for the Environmental Planning Program, Texas General Land Office, in Austin.