Many outdoor enthusiasts would say we did our daughter wrong. Bella was born ten years ago in Flagstaff. Not long after she turned two, we moved to Denver. And then, five years ago, we moved to New York City.Ěý

Bella on Governor’s Island, NYC.

Hippo playground.

A horseshoe crab in Jamaica Bay.

Flagstaff is a nature lover’s nirvana. There, at an altitude of 7,000 feet, I could trail run, mountain-bike, and ski—all on the same day.ĚýAfter my wife learned to cross-country ski, we’d use a pulk to tow Bella—all bundled up and stretched out on a plush sheepskin—and tour for hours through meadows, aspen groves, and pine forests under the cloudless, cerulean sky.Ěý

When we wanted to get out of town, the Rocky Mountains, Utah’s canyon country, the southern Arizona desert, Santa Fe, and the shores of California were all within driving distance. Bella had been to the Grand Canyon eight times by the time she was two—and we stayed overnight on three of those visits, once camping on the North Rim, where we didn’t see a soul for three days.Ěý

Denver’s outdoors scene isn’t shabby either. Although folks forget Denver was once known as the Queen City of the Plains, and isn’t actually nestled in the Rocky Mountains, it still affords easy access to the mountains and all they offer—camping, trail running, mountain biking, skiing, rafting, and fishing. At four, Bella learned to downhill ski in the mountains above Boulder. We all loved the shortgrass prairie: a long day in the saddle on the Great Plains is not soon forgotten. (The picture of Bella that I carry around in my wallet shows her smiling—a black-eyed Susan in each hand—in the wide-open prairie, surrounded by flowers.)Ěý

Bella was five in 2009, when we moved to Manhattan. It was quite an adjustment at first. My “trail” runs in Central Park were muddy, and half on pavement.ĚýOur dog stared at us, perplexed at the lack of grass and trees, unsure of where to do you-know-what. Gone was the backyard, with Bella’s sandbox, the herb garden we’d planted together, and the deep, green grass.ĚýI worried about what my daughter’s upbringing would be like here in the city, now that she was used to spending so much time outside.

I didn’t have to worry.ĚýWe learned to take advantage of Riverside Park’s four-mile stretch along the Hudson—to walk the dog, play ball, climb trees, sled in the winter, and catch fireflies in mason jars, punched on top with airholes, in the summer.ĚýWhen we need an easy outdoor adventure, I take Bella and her friends to clamber over the huge Manhattan Schist formations in Central Park.

Our daughter has been out to Jamaica Bay, in Queens, to catch mating horseshoe crabs and watch for migrating Red Knots, birds that feast on horseshoe crab eggs during their spring migration. I’ve taken Bella to see peregrine falcons perch in the nave of Riverside Church, and she and I have seen red-tailed hawks hunt from the fire escapes on Broadway. Right now, we’re planning an outing to see seals in New York Harbor.

And that’s just in the city. Bella has also camped and roasted marshmallows in Montauk, hiked in the Catskills, and cross-country skied and snowshoed in the Adirondacks.ĚýWithin a day’s drive we have Cape Cod, the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Delaware River, and the massive and stunning forests of the Northern Appalachians.

The world around our kids is what we make of it. We can find opportunities in our immediate vicinity, and we can hunt them down farther afield.ĚýI find that, while I revel in big, open landscapes, Bella loves the minute detail of an insect on a flower.ĚýShe and her best friend can spend what like feels like forever climbing in an old apple tree a few blocks from our apartment.ĚýSometimes I need to remember that, although I love to plan big, adventurous outings, some of them are often just around the corner, and right under our noses—even in one of the biggest cities in the world.

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“Who is going dog sledding?” asked the guide. Half the hands on the bus went up.

Bella and Roar, the Sami guide.

“Who is going snowmobiling?” It seemed the other half of the hands went up.Ěý

And then, more quietly and incredulously, he asked: “?”

My wife, our nine year-old daughter, and I sheepishly raised our hands. Doubt crept into our heads. Were we crazy be to taking our daughter, Bella, to a frozen lake in a remote region of the Norwegian Arctic to climb on a sled pulled by a reindeer? Worry began to set in.

When the bus arrived at Camp Tamok, near the town of Oteren, in the Norwegian Lapland, we asked our Sami guides if our cold-weather gear was appropriate. They laughed at our military-grade jackets, mittens, hats, and boots, which we had purchased stateside, and instructed us to throw on additional Arctic suits and boots. The frozen lake, they said, was several degrees colder than the surrounding area.

As we stood amidst a small herd of reindeer, we looked forward to what we imagined would be a Dr. Zhivago-like ride across the valley. We’d drape warm blankets over us and sip hot cocoa from a thermos. But then our guide pointed to three small sleds—one for him, one for me, and one for my wife and Bella—and said, “Let’s go.” Besides our Arctic gear, our only protection against the elements was a single reindeer pelt.

And so we set off in minus-ten-degree weather to see the Northern Lights. The valley was stunning, for both it’s beauty and tranquility. But it was cold. Arctic cold. About 20 minutes into the ride, Bella began to cry; she said her feet were freezing.Ěý Worry turned to fear, and fear turned to panic. I became concerned about frostbite and lost toes and wondered if we’d made a huge mistake coming here.

I called out to our guide and asked for the fastest way back to camp. He said walking or sledding would take the same amount of time, so we decided to travel on foot, hoping to get Bella’s circulation going.

Half an hour later, we were back in the camp’s big lavvu (tent), and Bella was in better spirits. We’ll never know how serious it was.ĚýThat’s one of the challenges of getting your kids outdoors.ĚýWe can judge our own thresholds—pain, heat, cold, exhaustion—but we can’t be sure how well or badly our kids are doing.ĚýThey might say they’re doing fine when there is something wrong, and they might just be suffering “cold feet” rather than “freezing feet.” But when you’re out in the dark in Arctic conditions and your nine year-old daughter says her feet are freezing, the stakes are pretty high.

We sat around the fire, drinking the hot cocoa we’d originally imagined, and eating reindeer stew.ĚýBella was now laughing and chatting happily with other visitors. When the guide came by after dinner to ask if we’d like to stay in a cabin rather than the lavvu, given the cold, it was Bella who shouted, “Tent!” before either Natalie or I could say a word. With near-disaster averted, our daughter seemed hooked on the Arctic experience.

I am always looking to excite Bella about the outdoors. Sometimes it’s odysseys like our two-week family trip to Scandinavia, and other times it’s a simple as an outing to Riverside Park in New York City where we see red-tailed hawks riding updrafts above the neighborhood’s tall buildings. Sometimes it’s just taking the dog for a walk. Some days she jumps at the chance, and other days I feel as though I have to dynamite her out of the apartment to blast her away from her art, her book, the iPad, or her simple desire to be at home.

It raises lots of questions. When to push and when to let her stay put? What are acceptable conditions for a young girl? How far is too far? All parents ask themselves these questions.Ěý

That night reindeer sledding is one we will never forget, both for the moment of fear when her feet began to freeze, and for how happy she was with the reindeer, our wonderful guide, the camaraderie, and the warm, delicious food served round the fire.

After a night spent in the lavvu, stoking the wood stove every couple of hours to stay warm, we went dog sledding the next day. Bella will tell you that was one of the best experiences of her life. Mine and Natalie’s, too.

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I’ve camped in a lot of places—the steppes of Mongolia, the East African bush, the Amazon, countless U.S. national parks and forests—but until recently I had never camped in a city, much less one with nearly nine million people.

Bill Ulfelder.

Urban wilderness.

Ěý

This summer the National Park Service announced it was expanding its campgrounds in the Gateway National Recreation Area, which includes 38 campsites in and around New York City. Located in the coastal dunes of New Jersey, on Staten Island and in Jamaica Bay, these campgrounds might seem like novelties. But as the world’s population grows to nine billion this century and as more and more people flock to cities, outdoor experiences such as hiking, biking and even camping are critical for city dwellers looking for connections to the natural world. And so, this past Veteran’s Day weekend, I set out to experience a night camping in the urban jungle.ĚýĚý

The experience started like any other trip to a federal campground. I made online reservations for a campsite at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, near JFK Airport, the busiest international passenger hub in the world. I packed a backpack. I checked the weather. I planned my route.

Floyd Bennett Field is a strange, juxtaposed place. There are the familiar sights of families riding bikes, except they ride along the old, massive landing strips of New York City’s first municipal airport, previously a naval air station. A handful of Boy Scouts sitting around a fire filled theĚý campground’s air with the familiar smell of woodsmoke as I made my way to my campsite at the far end of the field. Fishermen cast lines for sea bass, but with the Freedom Tower and Manhattan skyline rising behind them. Migrating geese fly and raptors soar above the beaches, while the dull roar of traffic fills the air.

I spent the day between these two worlds. Marveling at the beauty of the marsh, and appreciating the smell of salt air and the rise and fall of the tide and the natural rhythms of an estuary. All the while jets taking off from JFK flew overhead, and the Rockaways' public housing loomed in the distance. A food truck pulled up on a popular fishing beach, and I remembered that old New York City truth about getting anything and everything any time you want. Campgrounds are apparently no exception.

In the late afternoon, storm clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped. I needed to get my tent up. When I returned to my campsite I realized I was no longer alone. A group of about 20 teenage city kids and their chaperones had arrived and were setting up camp in the sites adjacent to mine. As night fell, the roar of a planes thundered constantly overhead.ĚýAfter roasting marshmallows, the teenagers began to play games that seemed to oblige shouting and running past my tent into the woods nearby. If I’d been camping with someone else I might have had to yell to be heard. I asked myself, “What the hell kind of camping is this?” just before drifting off to sleep.

I awokeĚýat 5:15 a.m. It was cold, nearly freezing, and completely still. Not a sound. I quietly slipped past the tents full of sleeping teenagers and headed down to the empty beach. Instead of planes,Ěýthe night's sky was full of bright constellations—a star-filled sky like I had never seen before in the city. The tide was out and the wet sand was full of raccoons’ paw prints.

As I sat on the beach and watched the sun's glow spread on the horizon, I could hear bird song in the marsh and trees behind me. I looked around and saw mussels, clams, geese, and the marsh and the forest all beginning to glow in the morning light. The anticipation of the sunrise was exhilarating. And then the sun rose behind the housing projects and warmed my body in the brisk morning air.

When I returned to my site later that morning the teenagers were slowly climbing out of their tents, and it occurred to me that they hadn’t seemed bothered at all by the planes flying overhead, the traffic in the distance, or the strange, solitary guy camping alone in the site next to theirs. Last night they’d pitched tents, roasted marshmallows, told campfire stories and slept in sleeping bags—all on the edge of one of the biggest cities in the world.

As I took down my tent later that day I began to think that as unusual a place as the campground at Floyd Bennett Field is, maybe there is something important going on there after all.

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Rick Cook knew he had something special when, out the corner of his eye, he saw a cloud of feathers. A peregrine falcon had just seized a small bird from the rooftop terrace that his architectural firm, , built on their nearly hundred-year-old office building in Manhattan. Cook + Fox, who also worked on the first and largest LEED Platinum skyscraper in the world at in Manhattan, had created not only a green roof, but a living roof. It was a reminder of the opportunities we have with an often forgotten part of the city.

There are many kinds of roofs that are good for both people and nature, and they come in a variety of colors—black, white, blue, and green.

Black roofs hold solar panels. They can generate abundant, clean, renewable energy. White roofs cool their buildings and reduce energy consumption. In urban areas like New York City, roofs that are painted white reflect the sun’s heat, rather than absorb it, as conventional black roofs do. Blue roofs catch rain water. Buildings like Cook + Fox’s LEED skyscraper cycle rain water into the building for use in cooling systems and bathrooms. Other buildings channel water to irrigate vegetation or store it for later use.

But for me, in my role at , living green roofs are the most exciting. These roofs, like Cook’s, are about restoring nature and bringing things to life.ĚýThese roofs can grow food and help restore wildlife habitats in cities.

Once you plant a roof green, the first wildlife to arrive are the insects. Important pollinators like beetles, butterflies, and bees begin to buzz around their new oasis. Birds follow, feasting on the buffet of insects. And then, just as the birds are getting comfortable, predators—much like the falcon on Cook’s roof—swoop in, completing the cycle of life in the heart of the city that never sleeps.

We have big parks here in New York City like Riverside, Pelham Bay, and Central Park. We can connect them for wildlife with mini parks on top of our city’s buildings. These sky islands will allow our urban wildlife to fly or be carried among them, pollinating crops, flowers, and trees, producing honey and serving as prey to predators like hawks and falcons.

We have 14,000 acres of rooftops in New York City. That’s plenty of room to generate electricity, reduce energy consumption, capture rainwater, grow food—and restore nature.

And we can have fun along the way. My family and I recently went to a party held on a large, living terrace 16 stories above the street. It was planted with grasses, bushes, and 20-foot-tall trees. At the party, my eight-year-old daughter approached me with a sheepish look and said, “Daddy, my clothes are a mess. I’ve been playing in the dirt all afternoon.” Let’s add people to the list of species who will thrive on urban sky islands.

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I am an unabashed city kid. I grew up in Washington, D.C., where urban parks—no matter how small—were my nature. That is why my column is called “Urban Conservationist.” It sounds like an oxymoron: Urban centers are beyond conservation, right? Wrong. Urban conservationists are exactly what the world needs. Lots of urban conservationists. Billions of urban conservationists.

When I began working for The Nature Conservancy after graduate school, I had the opportunity to see some wondrous places through my work—the Amazon rainforest, the high peaks of the Andes, the grasslands of the Mongolian steppe, the reefs of the Caribbean and the majestic forests and prairies of the Rocky Mountain West.

But now I am living in New York City and I am, once again, a city kid. And as a conservationists, I couldn’t be more thrilled.

I believe cities are civilization’s greatest invention to address the conservation challenges of our time. Scientists project that global population will reach nine, perhaps 10 billion people this century. Two thirds to three quarters of the world’s population will live in cities. That means that by 2100 there will be nearly as many people living in cities as there are people on Earth today.

Cities are where we are most innovative, most diverse, most egalitarian. In cities our children get better educations, and out communities live more sustainably. Cities have the most efficient energy and transportation systems, smaller carbon footprints, more expansive recycling programs, and the opportunity—nay the imperative—to provide clean air and clean water for billions of people.

And our cities have nature. New York City has more kinds of plants and animals than Yellowstone National Park. While Yellowstone may have bison, wolves, elk and grizzlies, New York City has humpback whales, sharks, seals, world-class migratory bird sites, species found nowhere else, and the fastest animal on earth—the peregrine falcon.

Urban conservation is about harnessing the potential of our greatest invention, the modern city, and using it to connect urban people to nature. That might mean wild nature, rural nature, or suburban nature, but it can and should also mean urban nature. There is nature right here in our backyards and our parks; even the green strips running down big avenues like Broadway contain natural value. By harnessing this potential we connect people to nature—and nature to people. In doing so, we will conserve the lands and water on which all life depends.

The Nature Conservancy has been around for more than 60 years, working in places like the Amazon, the Coral Triangle and the Adirondacks. We’ve intentionally steered clear of cities. That won’t work for us anymore. It’s time we became urban conservationists. It’s time we all became urban conservationists.

This column was originally published in magazine.

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