I

n order to secure a sustainable future we need to understand

and conserve biodiversity, which is the basis of all life.
Ecological Urbanism is an approach to city living that looks at
ways to work with ecological and urban systems in order to ensure
our continued survival.
One of the effects of urbanization is that, as a city grows, the
landscape becomes fragmented by infrastructure such as roads,
railways and development. Ecological systems are interrupted and
the parcels of land that provide habitats for plants and animals
get smaller and increasingly disconnected. If we are to support
biodiversity in this fragmented landscape, the challenge is to try to
reconnect the interrupted ecosystems.
Ecologist Richard Forman has written about patches and
corridors, whereby a green area that provides a habitat (or number
of habitats) is called a patch and the strip of land connecting the
patches is called a corridor. The corridor can either be a continuous
piece of land or a series of stepping stones across the landscape.
The important point is that the patches need to be connected
to form a network of viable habitats across the landscape. If the
patches arent connected then animals and plants cannot meet to
share genes; and populations decline.
Imagine then a network of green patches and corridors snaking
across the city landscape, allowing ecosystems to be reconnected
and animals and plants the chance to thrive. If biodiversity thrives,
then we have the potential to thrive too. An equally important
aspect of reconnecting ecosystems is to reconnect humans
with those ecosystems so that there is an understanding of the
importance of ecosystems and the need to protect them.
Ecosystems are important to human survival because we
benefit from them in a number of ways. The Economics of
Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) Initiative has named these
benefits ecosystem services and these ecosystem services
provide us with goods and services that include the provision
of raw materials, food and water, cultural and recreational
opportunities, the regulation of air and water quality and the
provision of habitats for plants and animals. We get so many
benefits from natural systems that often we take them for
granted. The first step in learning to appreciate the value of
ecosystems is to identify their associated ecosystem services. A
park or local green space, for example, provides us with social,
recreational, spiritual and psychological benefits. This leads to
health benefits. The trees in the park can block out surrounding
noise as well as reduce heat and the park can provide a habitat
for animals and plants.
Working with natural systems to create a sustainable city
environment can be done on a number of scales, from the regional,
to the metropolitan and loca. On a regional scale, planning and
environmental practitioners need to identify and protect critical
ecosystems and ecosystems services. Often there is a financial
implication in protecting these ecosystems, for example, it is more
cost effective to protect a watershed than to build a new water
treatment plant. In the Cape we are fortunate that the City of Cape
Town, SANBI, CapeNature, SANParks and others have identified
Cape Towns ecosystems and worked to place values on their
services. These are considered during decision-making processes.
Financial value is just part of the equation, as there is social value
in peoples relationships to land and ecosystem services.
What can I do?
On the local scale we can plant indigenous plants, conserve water
with a grey-water system, recycle our waste, use solar geysers
and grow vegetable gardens. At another level we need to see the
connections between ourselves and our neighbours, between
our homes and the street, and beyond that to the systems that
work across the city. We dont operate in isolation and we need
to think about what we consume and where our waste goes, how
we are connected and how we can contribute to making our cities
sustainable. Lets imagine the urban environment that we want to
live in, and start working towards making it happen.
We could develop the concept of sustainable streets, where
we work with our neighbours to find ways to increase the
permeability of our gardens, to reduce waste and to share
resources. A tree-lined street linking indigenous gardens can
effectively become an ecological corridor. By transforming a
mobility corridor designed for cars into an ecological corridor
we re-purpose an existing space and increase the functionality
of the street. People complain that they dont see chameleons
in their gardens any longer, but they remove hedges in order
to build brick walls topped with electric fences. One way to
invite chameleons back into your garden is to think of the street
as a corridor, to plant indigenous plants in your garden and
allow shrubs and trees to hang over perimeter walls. Residents
of a street could co-operate by planting trees on verges or
developing recycling projects. Working together to raise aware-
ness of sustainability issues can also lead to an increased sense
of community, something that benefits us all.
READING
Forman, R. 2010. Urban Ecology and the Arrangement of Nature in Urban
Regions. In: Mostafavi, M. & Doherty, G, eds. Ecological Urbanism. Harvard
University Graduate School of Design, Lars Mller Publishers.
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) Initiative. 2010.
Mainstreaming the economics of Nature: a synthesis of the approach, con-clusions
and recommendations of TEEB. Available at www.teebweb.org. TEEB is a major
international initiative to draw attention to the global economic benefits of
biodiversity, to highlight the growing costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem
degradation, and to draw together expertise from the fields of science,
economics and policy.
GET CONNECTED
Gill Cullinan is an urban planner. She feels strongly that ecosystem services as a
concept are not widely understood, and it is vital that we all begin to appreciate
the benefits that we receive from natural systems. Gill can be contacted at
gill@mcaplan.co.za.
Cities need to develop a network of green patches and
interlinking corridors to conserve biodiversity
by Gill Cullinan, Urban Planner, MCA Urban and Environmental Planners, CapeTown
ABOVE: Join the Treevolution. Ecological urban graffiti in Cape Town. (http://www.greenpop.org.)
Reconnecting landscapes
and community
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