On the evening of March 21, 2025, a crowd gathered at The Peale museum in downtown Baltimore to attend a panel discussion on the human impact on the Jones Falls watershed, envisioning a more balanced, symbiotic future. The backdrop was the February-March 2025 exhibition, “The Future of Here: A Glimpse of a River Culture to Come.”
The panelists, led by exhibition co-organizer and environmental anthropologist Anand Pandian, included FTJF’s President, Sandy Sparks, and Board member and learning scientist, Melissa Campanella. Sarah Holter, Water Quality Program Manager, and John Marra, Community Program Manager, represented environmental non-profit Blue Water Baltimore. Sarah Koser, Chesapeake Bay Trust Grants Program Manager, and James Wolf, President of the Friends of Stony Run, rounded out the speakers. Exhibition co-organizer and visual artist Jordan Tierney also spoke from the audience.
From questions by Anand and audience members, each panelist shared personal and organizational testaments of challenges to and hopes for the Jones Falls watershed. Scarcity of resources and time, pollutants, invasive species and the looming threat of climate change were described as daunting challenges. But the panelists together offered resounding, hopeful reason for a prosperous Jones Falls ecosystem: the rich web of community.
Jordan and Melissa spoke to the beauty of the natural communities they see in our urban watersheds. Yellow-crowned night herons, hawks, foxes, fish, coyotes and humans are all neighbors in the urban watershed.
Jordan invited the crowd to see all living creatures, including plants, as more similar to than separate from ourselves. Both called for dissolving the manufactured barrier between the human and the natural world–so as to deepen our sense of hope in repairing and sustaining a thriving ecosystem of belonging in every part of every community.
-Sarah Holter, Panelist, Blue Water Baltimore
Friends of The Jones Falls 