A Reddit post has shown how a golf course in Ohio took rewilding to the next level.
In a popular post on the r/NoLawns subreddit, a user shared photos of a space that used to be a golf course in Akron, Ohio, now overgrown with beautiful trees, tall vegetation, and lush greenery. One commenter identified the area as the Valley View section of the Cascade Valley Metro Park.
According to the Akron Beacon Journal, the Valley View area has functioned as a transportation hub for Indigenous people, a boatyard, a dairy farm, and, most recently, a golf course, which operated from 1956 to 2015.
Once the golf course closed, the city's park district bought the land for $4 million, which Summit Metro Parks Board of Park Commissioners Chair Joel Bailey dubbed "the Louisiana Purchase, because of its strategic location and its historical significance."
Teams have spent the past several years restoring the area to its original natural glory, and the area now connects 1,800 acres of uninterrupted, protected green space that the golf course originally impeded. The $3 million restoration project helped revitalize the local waterways, removed non-native plants from the area, and made the land more inviting for wildlife. The space is now home to more than 500 different species of plants, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.
In addition to boosting local ecosystems through intentional restoration, removing the golf course also bodes well for the environment because golf courses use absurd amounts of water. Audubon International says that the average golf course in the United States uses as much as 312,000 gallons of water per day, according to NPR.
Users shared their excitement about the restoration project in the comment section of the Reddit post.
"That should happen to more golf courses in the future, they're unsustainable," one user wrote.
"Awesome! The world needs more of this," another user commented.
"It looks like somewhere in the African savanna during the wet season 😍," a third user said.
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