What's With All the White Ribbons on Campus?
Ribbons help survey crews plot tree locations for Central Campus planning
The ubiquitous white ribbons that have appeared on hundreds of West Campus trees over the past month are part of an ongoing survey tied to Central Campus planning, according to Duke officials.
The ribbons indicate the trees have been plotted on a revised campus survey map. The cataloguing is being conducted under the supervision of university architect John Pearce as part of a city-mandated process.
The Durham planning process requires that each tree over six inches in diameter be identified and marked on the survey map. The ribbons help surveyors keep track of which trees have been plotted. The result will be a campus map that more accurately marks the locations of trees and helps campus planners better preserve space for them.
"The ribbons also support visually our desire to know where our forest is," Pearce said. "Our goal in campus planning is to preserve a feeling of a university in a forest."