Hello and thank you for coming on this fall stroll through Cowen park.  Today you will be walking through this urban greenspace, nestled between the Udistrict and Ravenna park communities, and while you walk, ask yourself, “What makes a park beautiful?”  Is it the ferns cascading over the ravines, the lush green hues of mosses on the trees?  It’s safe to assume it isn’t trash littered on the floor, clearings where flora and fauna once grew, litter and graffiti over bridges carrying honking cars.  This walk is a chance to explore the impacts that human interaction and development have on the vital spaces we all value so much, and how our own involvement in a space meant to stay natural threatens the integrity of what we care for so much.  At Cowen park you will see the impacts that human development, in the form of both homeless encampments and public use, have on habitat destruction and biodiversity, placing nature in the rearview while human benefit and use sits in the driver's seat. These gems of parks found throughout Seattle provide freedom, rest and recreation for so many, but such a mecca leads to overuse.  What’s more, these fragmented green spaces act as critical habitat for the diverse native creatures of Washington.  The animals and plants of the region have no place to call exclusively their own, constantly forced to share the environment with the influx of human visitors.  And where can the homeless that you pass so often go to find shelter or water, where can they find space enough to settle themselves in a concrete jungle and what impact does this have on those spaces? In this unsuspecting small park, we can witness and walk through these questions to explore the deeper impacts of habitat loss that these constant human interactions inflict on the space.  We will visit baseball diamonds, playgrounds, trails and a bridge, all structures typically to any Seattle park, and as you wander these areas, don’t be afraid to ask yourself, “what was here before?”