‘Why urbanites need access to abundant wildlife’ is because the places we live are only habitable if we’re surrounded by abundant wildlife.
Conservationists are calling for 30 per cent of the world’s land and sea to be protected by 2030. The so-called 30×30 Initiative has gained worldwide attention, especially since it’s thought that a third of climate change problems could be also fixed by restoring nature.
But today over half of humanity lives in cities and in Australia, it’s more than nine out of ten of us. This begs two questions: First, what is nature? And second, where do we urbanites fit into these ideas?
What is nature?
Widespread adoption of nature-based solutions for environmental problems emerged only recently. The first global standards were published at the start of the United Nation Decade on EcosystemHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More Restoration in 2020, which sparked ambitious and exciting efforts to reframe the way we live.
For the first time, people are talking about us being part of nature. That’s momentous. After all, we cannot separate humans from nature, in the same way as we can’t separate ourselves from our own homes.
Building cities for ourselves is, arguably, as natural as …
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This article ‘Why urbanites need access to abundant wildlife’ was written for The Fifth Estate magazine
