Peter Wackernagel is a landscape designer who loves sharing his skills and putting plans into action. He especially enjoys working with youth as they build rain gardens and pollinator gardens, plant shade trees, and construct community gathering spaces.

Wackernagel’s creative roots run deep. His great-grandfather, Edgar Irving Williams, was a renowned architect who designed churches, public libraries, and municipal buildings. “Many in my family have watercolor paintings he made,” said Wackernagel. The architect’s daughter – who later became Peter’s grandmother – moved to northern Vermont in the 1950s, which is how Wackernagel came to be born and raised in the Green Mountain State.

Edgar’s older brother, William Carlos Williams, was widely published and admired for his poetry and other forms of writing, which he prodigiously produced for decades while simultaneously attending to patients in his busy medical practice.

Similarly, Wackernagel possesses varied skills. “I’ve always been interested in farming, design and building gardens,” he said. “I grew up in Richmond, which is fairly rural. My mom studied to be a field naturalist, and my dad worked with dairy farmers through the UVM (University of Vermont) extension. Family activities were mostly outdoors: going to the Audubon (nature preserve) area, backpacking, and participating in scouts.”

After completing a graduate program in landscape architecture at University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2020, Wackernagel partnered with the Brick House Community Resource Center in Turners Falls to launch a program called Youth Climate Action of Franklin County (YCAFC) to address climate change problems at the local level. Though he’s been in the area for under a decade, Wackernagel has influenced regional landscaping and is making a name for himself.

The father of two young children, Wackernagel hopes his work with YCAFC will lead to “cultural change to shift the ways people manage and look at everyday landscapes. I want to encourage people to manage landscapes in ways that promote biodiversity, clean water and carbon storage.” He’s inspired by seeing beauty in the ways landscapes change over time and interact with larger environments, and wants to share that inspiration with people who are inheriting our planet.

After graduating from college with a degree in international development and social change, Wackernagel worked in reforestation and organic farming. “One of my most inspiring experiences was working in Boston at the intersection of parks and youth development at the Emerald Necklace Conservancy about a dozen years ago.” The park system designed by Frederick Law Olmsted – which encircles the city and includes the Franklin Park Zoo and Olmsted Park – introduced Wackernagel to the field of landscape design, which inspired him to attend graduate school.

“While working for a youth program doing park maintenance and team building, I discovered that landscape design is an actual profession,” he said. In grad school, Wackernagel had a research assistantship that introduced him to concepts related to urban community resilience. “I learned that the best models involve partnerships between grassroots neighborhood organizations and municipalities. That’s what inspired me to start the program at the Brick House.”

Since 2020, YCAFC has completed seven projects and received broad support, including funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the New England Grassroots Environment Fund, MassDevelopment, the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, FirstLight, Greenfield Savings Bank, Friends of the Great Falls Discovery Center, and from the Franklin Community Co-op through their “Round Up for Community Change” program.

Wackernagel’s guiding principles include favoring native plants and seeking nature-based solutions. When it comes to remedying toxic landscapes, for example, “a conventional approach might be to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and pump it back into the ground,” he said, “but we can create landscapes that sink carbon in more nature-based ways.”

It’s also vital to consider issues related to environmental justice, he said. More people are becoming aware that communities populated wholly or mostly by people of color contain higher numbers of dumps and asphalt plants, and therefore higher levels of pollution. “We need to come up with positive environmental amenities,” said Wackernagel. “For example, in an urban heat island – an area typified by concrete and with few trees or green spaces – steps can be taken to establish a tree canopy while also removing some of the pavement. It can help to replace black roofs with cool roofs – ones that are white or green – or roofs can be fitted with solar panels.”

The term “food desert” has also gained more attention in recent years, describing areas where fresh food is nonexistent or difficult to obtain. “A nature-based solution can be to establish community gardens,” said Wackernagel. When it comes to dealing with stormwater, he said, “a conventional model is to sewer it, which can lead to water quality problems. A nature-based solution involves green infrastructure like a rain garden, which collects water and allows it to percolate into the earth.”

Finding solutions for contemporary crises may seem daunting, but Wackernagel and his family ground themselves by spending time in nature. Three-year-old Esmeralda loves walking in Highland Park, and one of her favorite things is heading to the Pleasant Street Community Garden – where the family has a plot – and doing some digging. “I have my own shovel and rake,” she said. “It’s fun.” She enjoys making houses for worms, but added, “sometimes the worms just come out of the houses I make.”

Wackernagel and Emma Donnelly, the mother of their children, share many interests. Donnelly has gardened professionally and done web design, and she co-ran the Blue Dragon Apothecary, making herbal products and handling retail sales.

The couple, both in their late thirties, are excited about their upcoming wedding. “We’re getting married at the end of August,” said Donnelly, “but we’ve been together for six years. We actually met at the Brick House in Turners.”

Wackernagel offered a different version: “No, wait… we met at a party.”

Donnelly laughed. “Sort of. Before that, though, when we were both at a Brick House event, I could tell you were checking me out.”

Busted, Wackernagel humbly nodded. “I guess I was, but the first time we touched was at a marijuana legalization party that was also a holiday party.” With a chuckle, he added, “Put that in the newspaper!”

Their moods are often lighthearted, but Wackernagel and Donnelly are serious about making a difference, and find that it’s not always easy. “(The youth climate action group) doesn’t have any projects right now,” said Wackernagel, “but we’re actively looking for one or more. I hope to run summer programs in July and August.”

A proposed project at the site of the Turners Falls fish ladder is on hold. “It would be great to replace the burning bush and hemlock that’s there now with native floodplain forest plants like sycamore, cottonwood and silver maple,” said Wackernagel.

He’s been working with youth participants on a pollinator garden at Unity Park, and one is proposed for a spot near the Shady Glen restaurant. “We’re waiting for funding on that,” he said. Wackernagel is also involved with a project coordinated by Greening Greenfield, one that’s underway at a municipal building on Sanderson Street in Greenfield.

Meanwhile, Wackernagel does landscape design and installation on his own, but hopes to “grow the youth program, take on more projects, and employ more youth. I’d also love to find young people interested in taking on leadership positions and being involved in decision making and project planning.”

Wackernagel contends with funding challenges. “A few grants didn’t work out; it’s tricky covering basic expenses. I do a lot of the work as a volunteer, and our administrative staff is made up entirely of volunteers.”

Local residents interested in having a garden project at their home or office installed by local youth can contact Wackernagel. “It could even be this summer,” he said. “I’m still trying to find a project or two.” Youth participants would be paid through MassHire YouthWorks, but the project host would pay for materials and for Wackernagel’s time.

Locals interested in supporting YCAFC can send a check to: The Brick House Community Resource Center, P.O. Box 135, Turners Falls, MA 01376, with “Youth Climate Action of Franklin Co.” in the memo line.

Young people interested in joining Wackernagel’s brigade, or anyone wanting to propose a project, can contact: p.wackernagel@gmail.com

“I find this work joyful because I’m part of the solution,” said Wackernagel. “Young people who want to join me will have a chance to witness successional processes and the innate creative capacity of natural landscapes to adapt to their condition.”

The YCAFC Facebook page is facebook.com/100078357575950/.

Eveline MacDougall is the author of “Fiery Hope” and an artist, musician, teacher and mom. She loves to hear from readers: evelinemacdougall@gmail.com.

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