In New York, artist Maya Lin's 'Ghost Forest' warns on rising sea water

In the center of New York City’s spring greenery, artist Maya Lin has installed the barren, brown trunks of 49 dead Atlantic White Cedar trees in a Manhattan park as a “Ghost Forest” to warn of the danger of climate change and the threat of rising sea water.

“This is a grove of Atlantic Cedars… victims of saltwater inundation from rising seas due to climate change,” said Lin, designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.

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“They’re called, ‘Ghost Forests,’ so I wanted to bring a ghost forest to raise awareness about this phenomenon,” she added, noting that more than 50% of Atlantic Cedars on the U.S. Eastern Seaboard have been lost.

The trees, some of them 80 years old, are from the Atlantic Pine Barrens of New Jersey, which is about 160 km from downtown Manhattan.

The exhibit in Madison Square Park, in the shadow of the Empire State Building, will be displayed until November 14. Reuters