Protecting our Future Shorelines! A Ferry Talk and tour with Don Riepe and Yessenia Funes

Part of Imagined Futures: This is Your City
Climate Week NYC Program and City-Wide Scavenger Hunt

Join us for a Ferry talk and tour with longtime shoreline steward and egret whisperer Don Riepe, in conversation with environmental journalist Yessenia Funes.

This tour begins at the Ferry terminal in Wall Street and travels on the water to the Rockaways, where we’ll end with a community mashup party at Bungalow Bar.

NYC’s shoreline 50 years ago was mostly a place of environmental disgrace. From the Hudson River to the Rockaways, waterways were used as dumping grounds for Industry’s waste, with frontline communities paying the price. For much of those 50 years, Don Riepe has been the Guardian of Jamaica Bay, helping steward a whole new path towards thriving estuaries and a sanctuary for all. Yet the future is tenuous when it comes to having shorelines at all.

Join legendary environmental leader Don Riepe as we travel the water from Wall St to the Rockaways. From the Ferry Terminal in the Rockaways, we’ll head over to Bungalow Bar to keep the conversation flowing, literally, with the launch of Rockaway Brewing’s Imagined Futures Spelt Lager, made for Don with proceeds going directly to his work.

Participants will be walking for 10-15 minutes as part of the tour and will take one shuttle bus. Please contact us with any accessibility concerns. (email [email protected])

Participants are responsible for their own NYC Ferry ticket and late-comers will not be accommodated. Tickets are first come first served and there is no reserved seating. To ensure seating, please arrive 15 minutes before the departure of the Ferry.

This program is part of a city-wide program and an Interactive Scavenger hunt. Sign up to participate at holesinthewallcollective.org/scavengerhunt. This event is worth 1000 points.

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More info about our guides

Don Riepe
With over 30 years experience as a naturalist and manager at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, Don doesn’t mess around when it comes to community-based coastal clean up and marsh restoration, fortified with a deep knowledge that protecting the marsh means protecting New Yorkers. Though he’s “retired” from his official role as active director of the Littoral Society, there’s no retiring from protecting the shoreline. Just look for the Jamaica Bay Guardian boat and you’ll likely see Don on survey or patrol of the Bay he calls his home.
His contributions to the academic and journalistic realms are countless, including a Masters of Science in Natural Resource Management from the University of New Hampshire, professor of Wildlife Management at St. John’s University, and currently on the advisory board for NYC Audubon, Co-Chair of the Jamaica Bay Task Force; and Chair of the Wildlife Hazard Task Force, JFK Airport.

Yessenia Funes
Yessenia Funes is an environmental journalist born and raised in New York. She focuses on environmental and climate justice, always centering the lived experience of community in her writing. She’s presently editor-at-large at Atmos, an independent climate and culture magazine. Her writing can be found in Vox, National Geographic, New York Magazine, Vogue, Scientific American, and more. She publishes a weekly creative climate justice newsletter called Possibilities where she shares her art and musings.

Holes in the Wall Collective
Holes in the Wall Collective takes on the big social challenges with joy, creativity and action by directly supporting and connecting people already doing the work.
They’ve been reimagining how to engage with our city and world for the last 10 years.

This is part of their large initiative Imagined Futures, supporting Climate work happening right now in NYC to support a joyous and sustainable future.