Canarsie Park natural area

Belt Pkwy, Seaview Ave Btw: Paerdegat Basin, E 93 S, E 102 St, Fresh Creek Basin

In addition to its ballfields and playgrounds, Canarsie Park boasts more than 50 acres of natural area. The waters of Jamaica Bay historically stretched landward to cover all of where Canarsie Park is located today. By 1950, land reclamation activities had expanded the Brooklyn shoreline in this area by more than a quarter of a mile into the Bay, where the Belt Parkway now runs. By 2010, NYC Parks had completed the construction of a freshwater wetland in the west side of the Park, close to Paerdegat Basin, and in 2018 built a new greenway to connect park goers between the park's natural areas and its active recreation amenities.

Today, the park's natural areas are home to coastal forest ecosystems with native tree species such staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) and hackberry (Celtis occidentalis) in the midstory and towering eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides) in the canopy. NYC Parks continues to manage the forest understory to control introduced plants that crowd out other species and plant more native tree species to establish in forest canopy gaps.