Map and Explore: Hidden Hydrology

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The manipulation of our hidden hydrology and the desire to connect back to these lost traces is a commonality we share distinct from culture, geography, and ecology. It is a story reflected in every city, and manifest in every old blue line on every old map.
Our cities are filled with hidden stories. Some of these tales are unlocked through conversations with long-time residents and oral histories, while others emerge through the written word, embedded in documents and biographies from the shapers and boosters that made our cities. Some hide in maps, a chronology of layers of changes over time, intimately spatial and tied to places, where you can stand and feel the resonance of what took place years, or centuries before. Historians and ecologists are my heroes for connecting these disparate layers and weaving the threads into compelling narratives aimed at connecting the past with present.

Hidden Hydrology, officially launched in 2016, has a goal of exploring lost rivers, buried creeks & disappeared streams. Connecting historic ecology + the modern metropolis. Site by Jason King, Hidden Hydrology

This was the inspiration for Hidden Hydrology (www.hiddenhydrology.org), my homage to these histories and a way to connect this to my work as a landscape architect and urbanist. The tagline is “Exploring lost rivers, buried creeks & disappeared streams. Connecting historic ecology + the modern metropolis.” A long-time passion for historical ecology, fired by pioneers like landscape architect Anne Whiston Spirn and her work in Philadelphia and Eric Sanderson’s Mannahatta, with its evocative maps of disappeared streams, and inquisitive essays of place by the likes of David James Duncan, led me to more formal research. Starting in late 2016, and through this recent work, I’ve been uncovering and sharing the projects and activities of many urban historians, hydrologists, artists, mapmakers, photographers, and others, including some that have made it to TNOC as well. All of these share a focus on celebrating the lost rivers, buried streams, and disappeared streams in their cities.

Map:

The hidden hydrology of cities manifests itself in unique ways. On a number of walks in Seattle last summer, I followed the routes of urban creeks and discovered that while hidden, the traces left behind reveal layers of meaning. One notable exploration was of an historic waterway known as Licton Springs Creek, in North Seattle. Licton Springs Creek is a short stem flowing north to south, and feeding Green Lake, which is the center point of a significant park in the inner north neighborhood of Seattle. The original General Land Office Cadastral Map from the 1850s revealed the creek.

The General Land Survey Cadastral Survey Maps provide key historical reference points in the US to streams and creeks, such as the maps of Seattle surveyed in the 1850s. Map: BLM Cadastral Survey

The more detailed 1894 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) topographic map shows the same forked creek along with some topography. The interesting take home message here is the absence of development, with only a few informal roads and a scattering of houses on the banks of the lake, just a bit over a hundred years ago.

USGS Topographic maps provided additional information on historic topography and hydrology, such as this 1894 survey of Seattle. Map: USGS Historical Topographic Map Explorer

The composite map, digitized into a Geographic Information System (GIS) and married with the database of information and aerial photos, provided the current context for the area including the existing open waterways. This became the blueprint for a route to explore. Although the map shows the creek as a shorter waterway, the current water route implies that the creek started further north, at Licton Springs Park.

A composite of historic stream alignments overlaid with a current aerial provides a blueprint for exploration. Map: Jason King, Hidden Hydrology

Explore:

With maps in hand, the process of exploration is easy. Find a good starting point and try to follow the route as closely as possible heading downhill. For this particular site, there were some springs emerging in the neighborhood, and these all led to a significant portion of the original creek in Licton Spring Park. The map below shows areas of “open channel” that exist within the residential neighborhood.

Locations of historic streams winding through Licton Springs Park. Map: Jason King, Hidden Hydrology

Walking a few feet off the sidewalk, you begin to hear the rush of water, and as it gets louder and louder, you find the inflow pipes feeding the creek. Three of these pipes drain other upland water bodies, feeding water to the existing daylighted portion of Licton Springs Creek, which weaves through the park, in both channel form and spreading into a larger wetland, with pathways and bridges crisscrossing at points.

Outfalls carrying drainage from springs and other waterways find daylight in Licton Springs Park. Photo: Jason King, Hidden Hydrology

In the park itself is the namesake Licton Springs, a serene spring consisting of a simple basin with an outlet, which is striking from the reddish tint of the sediment, caused by red iron oxide. From the Licton Springs Neighborhood page, some history of the spring and its significance to native people:

“Aurora-Licton Springs was once heavily forested, filled with springs, bogs and marshes. The Duwamish Indians called the springs Liq’tid (LEEK-teed) or Licton. Liq’tid means “red-colored” or “painted” in the Puget Sound Salish language, referring to the red iron oxide that still bubbles up in the springs. The springs had spiritual significance to the Native Americans who camped and built sweat lodges nearby, using the reddish mud to make face paint.”

A significant site for the Duwamish tribes as well as early settlers, Licton Springs gets it’s coloration from iron oxide. Photo: Jason King, Hidden Hydrology

The springs were a constant destination for native peoples as well as early settlers, including habitation in and around the location of the park, which provided recreation for inhabitants (see an interesting write-up on the site at Holy and Healing Wells). David Denny built a cabin on the site in 1870, and other habitation continued in the adjacent area for years. It is still used as a harvesting and recreation destination by the Duwamish. The pressure to develop this area led to the typical cycle, with concerns about the water quality.

Via Wikipedia: “The natural spring fed Green Lake before it was capped and drained to the Metro sewer system after it became contaminated by residential development (1920, 1931).”  The typical “modernization” of city infrastructure in the early 1930s, the shift from destination to development and erasure, happened throughout the area.

“Throughout the years, settlers and city dwellers came to the springs to picnic, drink the mineral water and to ease the aching legs of draft animals by soaking them knee deep in the mineral mud. Until 1931, when Seattle diverted the spring’s water to storm drains, Licton Creek fed Green Lake. Eventually most of the springs and bogs in the area were filled to create buildable lands. The natural wetlands were further drained because they were thought to be a health hazard.”

The area of the current park was always a vision, although it took many years to come to fruition. A development in the 1930s proposed a park plan from the Olmsted Brothers on the site, which is captured in a summary from Historylink:

“The Olmsted Brothers of Brookline, Massachusetts, were retained by Calhoun, Denny & Ewing to draw up plans for a park. They proposed an organic layout with a park, rustic drives, paved streets, and home sites. The Olmsted plan, never fully realized, included rustic shelters over the two spring basins, bridges, paths, and clearing the reserve around the springs as well as preservation of the original, rustic Denny cabins. One remnant from the Olmsted plan for Licton Springs that exists today is a portion of the street network, where Woodlawn Avenue curves to connect with N 95th Street.”

The park plan wasn’t implemented, but the land was used for a spa operated by Edward A. Jensen, which “offered thermal baths that included 19 minerals. Jensen also bottled the water and sold it countrywide.” After his death, the land was slated to be developed as a sanitarium but escaped this fate by being purchased as park land by the city. The park was developed officially in the 1970s, and the connection to the streams was maintained. The outfall to the south is a garden entitled “Healing Hands” designed by landscape architect Peggy Gaynor. Gaynor created drama with ripples transitioning to the grand finale—a larger grated outfall creating a cacophony as it exits into the storm system. The area also includes a bridge crossing a rock-lined channel planted with a mix of streamside vegetation.

Licton Springs outfall garden “Healing Hands” by Seattle landscape architect Peggy Gaynor. Photo: Jason King, Hidden Hydrology

Beyond the park, my thought was that there would be no remnants left of Licton Springs Creek as the remainder of the route is built-up residential neighborhoods. This is where exploration pays dividends, opening up layers of urban history that, if you wander, stop and look, tell unique ecological stories of our places. In this case, two hidden hydrological features emerged to complete the story of Licton Springs Creek.

A map of some of the hidden gems in the neighborhood, including a sanctuary for waterfowl and a neighborhood stream. Map: Jason King, Hidden Hydrology

The first is a gem known as Pilling’s Pond, which is a discovery that opens up new understandings of place. As you near the site, it seems a little different, surrounded by a chain link fence behind which is a large spring-fed pond, teeming with unique residents—waterfowl. An interpretive sign on the site tells the story, with a short excerpt from the Licton Springs Neighborhood page:

“At around 1933, Chuck Pilling dammed the creek that runs through the property from Licton Springs. This enabled him to provide a habitat that still exists and sustains a broad assortment of waterfowl today. Chuck attracted worldwide attention as the first successful breeder of the hooded merganser, bufflehead and harlequin ducks. Chuck’s hobby has turned into a major community attraction. With people stopping to look at the unusual assortment of water birds, both tame and wild it is a truly unique treasure enjoyed by the entire community.”

You can read the history of this fascinating guy, the connection to Licton Springs, and also check out a video excerpt from the documentary “Chuck Pilling’s Pond: A Seattle Legacy”.

Pilling’s Pond is the fed by the Licton Springs Creek, and served as a sanctuary for ducks and other waterfowl. Photo: Jason King, Hidden Hydrology

A block south of the pond is what I call the Ashworth Neighborhood Stream, in which the historic Licton Springs Creek (albeit radically altered), is still present, channelized through the front yards of an entire residential block. The small channel slices through the front yards, with various types of bridges spanning the waterway, providing a hint of audible running water from the sidewalks, a rarity in a built up urban area.

The creek emerges in the front yards of a block along Ashworth Street, where residents build bridges over it to access their houses. Photo: Jason King, Hidden Hydrology

Toward the end of the walk, you arrive at Green Lake. The old inflow to the lake is no longer visible, and the location is not the exact stream route of Licton Springs. However, there is an abstracted sequence of water features at the Green Lake Wading Pool that provide a hint of what used to be, including an inlet from the north cascading into a sinuous pool, which overflows under a simple bridge before entering Green Lake. It is a metaphorical connection at best, but one that at least ends the journey in a way somewhat more poetic than a pipe.

Long buried, now only metaphorical waterways make the final connection to Green Lake, here as a drainage from a splash pool. Photo: Jason King, Hidden Hydrology
You can read a longer exploration of Licton Springs Creek here.

While this is a story about Seattle, it’s merely the story of one creek, which is sometimes visible, but much of which is obscured from our daily lives. It is also a story that is reflected in every city, and manifest in every old blue line on every old map. While pouring over maps, referencing old reports, and digitizing stream corridors into GIS is a nerdy and noble pursuit, and hours of fun, the most compelling advice I have to offer to engage in these places is to get out and walk them. Walking allows us to see our home places in new ways, as evidenced by a wide-ranging literature from amazing authors and explorers alike, such as Robert Macfarlane, Rebecca Solnit, and Lauren Elkin. Walking is a natural act but walking with purpose sometimes is a mystery. In this manner we are not following a trail, nor are we just aimlessly wandering. The act of tracing hidden streams, shorelines, and other waterbodies exists somewhere in between the two. In this regard, it is neither walking for exercise nor walking just for the sake of walking, but a sensory way to engage the body that connects the present and the historical.

If you don’t have a little mud on your boots, you aren’t doing it right. Photo: Jason King, Hidden Hydrology

For these walks, I have few rules. I do minimal research before the fact, so I’m focused on the experience of the journey and not anticipating some known destination ahead. I follow as closely as possible the original route of the stream or waterway, honoring sensitive ecosystems where present, but sometimes engaging the creek in a uniquely physical manner, as noted by the muddy boots above. For many reasons, I avoid trespassing, even when every fiber of my being wants to walk into someone’s backyard because I know something good is there, hidden just out of site. I often record sounds and take photos. I take lots of notes, and mostly importantly, I take my time. Although I’m not averse to company, I usually like to do these walks alone, to feel fully immersed in the process of engaging all my senses. And every time, even when I’m convinced there will be nothing, a monotony of development for the miles I plan to follow, I’m always rewarded with hints, clues, and traces of the palimpsest of the hidden hydrology.

It’s something that is present to varying degrees in every city around the world. A common thread we can all connect with, is the burying of these lost waterways, which happens in every city, everywhere in the world. It’s a commonality we all share distinct from culture, geography, and ecology—that of the manipulation of our hidden hydrology and our desire to connect back to these lost traces.

So, find and print out an old map. Sketch a route on a new map that matches some stream, any one will do. Grab a comfortable pair of shoes, perhaps a camera and a sound recorder and you’re set. Drive, bike, or bus your way to that hidden endpoint on the map. Map and explore, and begin to truly see these hidden parts of your city for the first time.

Jason King
Seattle

On The Nature of Cities

All photos and maps © Jason King, Hidden Hydrology, 2018

Banner Image: Urban creeks and wetlands flow throughout Seattle, often hidden from view, including here at Licton Springs Park. Photo: Jason King, Hidden Hydrology

 

Mapping the Forest for the Trees: A Census Grows in the Five Boroughs

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New York City is home to more than 600,000 street trees, according to some estimates. But good luck finding any one of those trees on a map—that is, until now. For the first time ever, the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation is working with thousands of volunteers to measure and map every single street tree on every single block in every single neighborhood in all five boroughs of the city.

Every. Single. Tree.

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Mapping with the 120th Precinct Explorers on Staten Island in July. Photo: @healthforyouths on Twitter

As if the sheer numbers weren’t enough of a challenge, the small army of volunteers—five thousand and growing—is using old fashioned site-surveying techniques to determine the location of all those curbside trees. No GPS. No Google Street View. No satellite imagery. Just a $90 measuring wheel, a plastic tape measure, and a meticulously designed data logging website filled to the brim with sophisticated geometry, cartography, and code. The whole improbable effort goes by the name of TreesCount! 2015 and it’s inviting New Yorkers to finally see the urban forest for all of its individual trees.

Why would one of the most technologically savvy cities on earth choose to map all of it street trees using methods familiar to, say, a seventeenth century Dutch farmer plotting out the boundaries of his land at the southern tip of Manhattan Island? Three simple answers: the method is cheap, it’s reliable, and it’s easy for volunteers to learn. Developed, tested, and refined by TreeKIT during the past five years, the mapping method asks volunteers to measure the distance between trees lined up along a street edge and an easy-to-estimate “start point” at the nearby intersection. You can learn more about the details behind the method here, here, and here (full disclosure: I co-founded and co-direct TreeKIT with my longtime collaborator Liz Barry, another participatory research enthusiast based in NYC). Volunteers have mapped nearly 100,000 trees since the initiative kicked off in late May and the speed with which new trees are added to the map seems to be accelerating week by week.

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Young volunTreers using the tree ID guide on Staten Island in July. Photo: @MJShanley3 on Twitter

Mapping street trees is only partly the point of TreesCount! 2015. NYC Parks, the department that oversees street trees in the Big Apple, wants to know what kinds of challenges each tree is facing and how much effort neighborhood volunteers are putting into keeping trees alive. TreesCount! volunteers record the circumference of every tree, their perceptions of the tree’s health, evidence of problems that could interfere with the tree’s growth, and signs of volunteer stewardship—things like mulching, perennial flower plantings, tree guard installations, and more. All of that data will help shape public policy and municipal spending on large scale initiatives to do the yeoman work of urban forestry: digging up and grinding old tree stumps, widening tree beds, removing metal grates encumbering tree roots, and planting more and more trees wherever they can fit.

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Measuring the circumference of a street tree. Photo: @NYCTreesCount on Twitter

And who are these thousands of volunteers stepping up to stroll along the city’s busy sidewalks wearing garish green safety vests and pushing bright orange measuring wheels? It seems people of all ages and backgrounds have offered to help, with neighborhood-based organizations across the city mobilizing local residents with help from NYC Parks. Volunteers complete an online mapping tutorial before hitting the streets with NYC Parks staffers for in-person training. After about an hour of instruction, they fan off in groups of two or three to map a proscribed area of the city.

The whole thing hinges on an elaborate and elegant website developed for TreesCount! 2015 by the incredible team of geo-coders, designers, and developers at Azavea, the Philadelphia-based B-corporation behind the celebrated OpenTreeMap currently in use in cities around the globe. Volunteers can sign up on the website, complete their online training, track mapping progress in any given neighborhood, and check out blocks to map on their own time (after earning the right to do so by attending a training event and another group event hosted by a local organization or NYC Parks).

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The web platform designed by Azavea for TreesCount! 2015.

The website also contains the Treecorder, where volunteers log all of the data they collect in the field and submit it to NYC Parks for quality review. The Treecorder builds on previous efforts by TreeKIT to craft a mobile data entry platform for its mapping method, and the original nugget of code that translates distance measures into mapped points still lives at the heart of Azavea’s intuitive and user-friendly application. Volunteers can interact with the site on any tablet, mobile phone, laptop, or desktop computer, and all of the site code was given an open source license so other cities can adopt and adapt it for their own needs in the future. Anyone involved in building web-based platforms that support citizen science projects would do well to spend some time exploring Azavea’s handiwork. They’ve set a new standard for excellence in this specialized area of web engineering and design.

In addition to developing the mapping method that drives TreesCount! 2015, TreeKIT worked with NYC Parks to design and iteratively refine both the online and field training experiences for volunteers. Ray Cha, a user experience designer with extensive knowledge of online learning platforms, joined the TreeKIT team for this portion of the project. The online learning experience is interspersed with short self-assessments and ends with an “Explore Your Knowledge” quiz that gives volunteers immediate feedback on their understanding of the material. TreeKIT also designed an innovative street tree stewardship identification guide, pulling in horticulture and design expert Emily Vaughn to create the 16-panel foldout guide that NYC Parks is giving out to every volunteer. Dr. Alex Paya, an expert in tree science with a knack for Photoshop, contributed a collection of beautifully processed leaf images for the high-resolution guide, which is printed on tear-proof and waterproof paper for mapping in all kinds of weather.

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The TreesCount! 2015 street tree species ID guide. Photo: Philip Silva

More than sixty local schools, non-profit organizations, and government agencies signed up to serve as partner groups for TreesCount! 2015, hosting training sessions, leading special mapping events, and organizing volunteers to join the effort in every corner of the city. Partnering groups were given the chance to claim a batch of blocks to map on their own local turf, making this census much more of a grassroots initiative than previous tree counts held ten and twenty years ago. As of late July, the Washington Square Tree Counters—a group that formed in response to the census—has already mapped more than 90 percent of the blocks in their patch of Manhattan. They found just over 1,000 trees scattered across the neighborhood. AFROPUNK 2015, a massive music, art, and culture festival slated for late August, is giving out tickets to volunteers mapping trees across a wide swath of Brooklyn. Every one of New York City’s five boroughs is represented by a partnering group, and new groups can still sign up to participate until TreesCount! 2015 wraps up later in the fall.

NYC Parks plans to make the data harvested through TreesCount! 2015 openly available to the public, just like it did with the two previous tree counts (though both ’95 and ’05 were, strictly speaking, just tree counts rather than efforts to make accurate tree maps). A public-facing tree map, sponsored by the city, may someday serve as a convening ground and coordinating tool for the thousands upon thousands of NYC volunteers that help the city care for street trees. Until then, the TreesCount volunTreers (yes, just like the Treecorder, the pun was intended) have plenty of mapping to keep themselves busy.

Philip Silva
New York City

On The Nature of Cities

Marine Biodiversity Conservation in Coastal Cities: Tales from Singapore

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The main picture prefacing the news article by Roger Harrabin on the BBC website on 8 April 2014 on the final draft report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was a stark black and white scene of strong high waves breaking against sea-walls.  It drives home the point that island and coastal cities will bear the hardest brunt of climate change.

The IPCC report did not have good news to share.  In fact, “emissions have been accelerating rather than slowing”.  A scan of the world map shows that coastal areas have the highest population density.  More than half the world’s population live in cities and more than half of this urban population live in coastal areas, and hence most of the people affected by climate change will be those living in coastal cities.  As coastal areas link land to sea, the activities of people living in these areas inevitably have impact on both terrestrial and marine ecosystems.  They are the very people who can make a disproportionate difference to biodiversity conservation.

Armelle Labadie-Ouedraogo, Isabelle Lavail-Ravetllat and Oliver Hillel highlighted the role that port cities can play in biodiversity conservation.  They shared the experience of Brest Metropole Oceane and the Maritime Territories International Network, a step in the right direction.  Tim Beatley had written about Blue Urbanism and posed the questions on what city citizens can do for marine conservation.

I would like to continue to expound on the issues raised by the previous authors by focussing on what the different residents of coastal cities can do to conserve their biodiversity and to prepare themselves for climate change effects by adaptation and mitigation.

We cannot conserve what we do not know.  Therefore, biodiversity surveys are essential. Singapore recently embarked on a Comprehensive Marine Biodiversity Survey.  The Comprehensive Marine Biodiversity Survey of Singapore (CMBS) is meant  to address the above challenge.  This ambitious national initiative, launched in 2010, was the first time that a concerted effort was made to comprehensively catalogue the marine biodiversity of Singapore.  Carried out in phases over five years, the CMBS brought  together the larger community of experts, non-governmental organisations, government agencies and volunteers to collect biodiversity information on mudflats, intertidal areas, coral reefs and the seabed of Singapore.  This was the key innovation of the CMBS — instead of relying on a limited pool of academia and naturalists to do the survey work, the CMBS set out to accomplish its objectives by bringing together a diverse group of people and organisations to contribute to a large-scale, multi-disciplinary project that is of national importance.

The CMBS has now completed two major expeditions in October 2012 and May 2013.  Within 3 and half years, CMBS uncovered 64 possible new species, more than 188 new records and 9 rediscoveries.  There were numerous rare discoveries made during CMBS.  One of 14 species identified as possibly new to science is the “Lipstick” sea anemone. Found in the mudflats at Pulau Ubin, this predatory animal has a distinctive red mouth and may not have been recorded anywhere else in the world.  Another species identified as possibly new to science is the orange-clawed mangrove crab found in coastal mangroves and a small goby, nicknamed “Zee” found in mudflats off Lim Chu Kang.  Other new records for Singapore include species of jellyfish, stinging nettles, bristleworms, marine slugs, crabs, sea cucumbers, and fishes.  In addition, some crabs were also rediscovered during the survey.  The zebra crab, found in the Southern islands, was last seen in the early 1960s.  A rarely seen tree-climbing Nipah crab was predicted to be in Singapore 20 years ago but was not confirmed until 2012.  Even more surprising is the rediscovery of a large coastal catfish species last seen in Singapore waters over 100 years ago — how could we have missed it for so long!

Through this survey, we discover species new to science and gain a better understanding of the rich marine biodiversity that Singapore harbours despite the city state’s fast-paced development and port activities.

Clownfish co-existing with sea anemone Photo: Karenne Tun
Clownfish co-existing with sea anemone. Photo: Karenne Tun

It has been observed that the areas with richer hard coral biodiversity tend to recover better from coral bleaching than species poor areas.  Hence, it is important to know what species we have so that we can better conserve them.  Biodiversity surveys help us identify areas that need intervention for them to be enhanced if natural ecosystems are to be sustained.  Coastal erosion is one prevalent problem that causes biodiversity loss and could benefit from facilitated enhancement.  

We observed a site where the sea front mangrove trees were destabilized by strong currents.  The typical engineering approach would be to build a seawall.  We felt that a hard infrastructure would not solve the problem but would instead deflect the waves to another site which in turn would be eroded.  We wanted to replant it with mangroves but hydrological modelling indicated that the mangroves would not be able to withstand the strong waves.

We decided to test out a hybrid solution, i.e., intersperses a low rock revetment with mangroves.  The rock revetment formed a solid base to support the mangroves that were planted in biodegradable pots.  Several species of mangroves were used to emulate that of the natural environment.  The selection of the species was assisted by observing the species zonation in the surrounding wild patches.  Nature is the best teacher.

Hybrid coastal protection infrastructure comprising a low rock revetment interspersed with mangrove plants Photo: National Parks Board of Singapore
Hybrid coastal protection infrastructure comprising a low rock revetment interspersed with mangrove plants Photo: National Parks Board of Singapore

For the enhancement of marine ecosystems, a continuous supply of native species is necessary.  For the coastal protection project, a mangrove nursery was set-up.  Seeds and saplings were obtained from the nearby natural environment.  This was also done with faunal species, like corals and giant clams.

Coral fragments were collected so that no corals were destroyed or damaged when collecting stocks for the coral nursery.  The coral fragments were secured on platforms so that they could grow under optimal conditions.  When they reached a certain size, they were translocated to impoverished areas to enhance those sites.  This project aimed to enhance the biodiversity in less rich sites and also to broaden the distribution of the corals, to maximise survival rates of hard corals.

Coral nursery in Singapore Photo: National Parks Board of Singapore
Coral nursery in Singapore Photo: National Parks Board of Singapore

We also found that the giant clams needed some assistance for them to thrive.  Giant clams are naturally slow-growing so we experimented with ex situ breeding to facilitate its growth.  When they had reached a certain size, we released them to suitable habitats and monitored their establishment in the natural environment.

Costal area and human settlements

What are the most dominant features in human coastal settlements?  How can we do more to conserve our marine biodiversity?  Where are the areas that are least explored for marine biodiversity conservation?  Many of our coastal cities have hard infrastructures like seawalls, jetties, marinas, etc.  People do not normally associate these structures with biodiversity but they are most prevalent in our built-up environment.  If we want to improve our quality of life, we need to bring back the biodiversity that provides us with essential ecosystem services or populate our built-up environment with marine flora and fauna.  Moreover, marine biodiversity can do all of the following without additional energy input from us — nor would they release more carbon into the environment.  Firstly, marine fish, shrimps, etc. provide us with a long-term supply of proteins, if we harvest them on a sustainable basis.  Secondly, filter feeders can clean up the water.  Thirdly, marine plants can aerate the water, hence, maintaining the oxygen levels in water.  Fourthly, marine biodiversity increases the recreational and tourism values.  The list goes on and on.

We decided to work with multi-agencies, marinas, condominiums, etc., to populate our coastal infrastructures.  We are currently working with a team from the university to design tiles with different textures that can be attached to seawalls so that each texture would attract different kinds of marine organisms.

Sea fans on sea walls in Singapore. Photo: Karenne Tun
Sea fans on sea walls in Singapore. Photo: Karenne Tun

One of the marinas has reduced the cleaning of their hard structures and the result is the proliferation of soft corals and other marine organisms.  These marine organisms add colour and beauty to the marina besides carrying out several ecosystem services for free.

Marine organisms in Keppel Marina, Singapore. Photo: Karenne Tun
Marine organisms in Keppel Marina, Singapore. Photo: Karenne Tun

These are some of the ways we have tried to conserve our marine biodiversity.  A coordinated approach to development and marine conservation like the integrated urban coastal management (IUCM) will ensure that utilization of resources is optimized.  To track whether these efforts are effective, it is crucial that quantitative monitoring systems are put in place.  The Singapore Index on Cities’ Biodiversity is an evaluation tool that could be applied for this purpose.  

There is so much to do.  The entire population has to be galvanized to implement marine biodiversity conservation efforts.  Everyone is a stakeholder.  Many of our conservation efforts are carried out with the help of volunteers.

CMBS volunteers. Photo: National Parks Board of Singapore
CMBS volunteers. Photo: National Parks Board of Singapore

It is increasingly evident that the marine environment is a treasure trove for innovative pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and industrial products.  City residents will stand most to gain from successful marine biodiversity conservation.  With the concentration of humans in coastal cities and the diverse expertise that they harbour, coastal cities can perform miracles for marine biodiversity conservation with imagination spiced with thinking out of the box.  More importantly, coastal cities must do it because they are the most vulnerable to adverse effects of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Lena Chan
Singapore

On The Nature of Cities 

 

Market-Based Solutions Cannot Forge Transformative and Inclusive Urban Futures

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There is an advertisement that is played with great frequency on television in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Even without the language, the imagery is powerful and vivid; the meaning seems unambiguous. In the setting of a sparklingly clean, modern kitchen, a young pregnant woman goes to drink a glass of what appears to be clean water. Immediately, a grandmother figure rushes forward, panic written across her face. She reaches out and knocks the glass from the young woman’s hands just at the very second she is about to take a sip. This dramatic moment is intensified by the grandmother waving her finger, admonishing the daughter for the risk posed to the unborn child by drinking the water. The finger wagging is explained with graphic images of what is really in the water—the very water that might be in the glass—with images of large-scale industrial pollution and human waste pouring into the natural waterways. The message is clear enough—the water in Dhaka is so contaminated that it cannot be trusted to be pure. The solution is equally clear—buy a high-tech water purification system.

We know that unless urbanization of the future is very different from current trajectories, our chances of meeting the Paris objectives are limited. Yet, the new urban agenda is not even on the agenda.

This advertisement touches many raw nerves. It seems to be a clear recognition of the state of the natural water systems on which the city of Dhaka depends. At the same time, it is an acknowledgment of the apparent implausibility of collective action to address such a fundamental problem, and one with such far-reaching consequences. The response to environmental degradation is classic neoliberalism—individualist and market-based.

But this is a response that also represents an enormous gulf between those that can act in this way, and the many millions who cannot. Dhaka stands out for the staggering numbers of people living in its slums, the vast majority of whom do not have access to basic urban systems and services, or—where they do have access—those systems and services come at a price that creates a disproportionate financial burden on their meager and uncertain incomes. The quality of such services is often at a basic or unacceptable level.

A young boy sits on top of a flood protection wall in Metro Manila. An informal community is settled under this bridge in a part of the river that is especially vulnerable to floods. Flood markers have been put in place to provide additional warning to the community - so that they can move to higher ground in case of an emergency. But the core of the problem is of lack of access to viable housing, employment and services that drives people to live in such vulnerable locations. Photo: © Richard Friend
A young boy sits on top of a flood protection wall in Metro Manila. An informal community is settled under this bridge in a part of the river that is especially vulnerable to floods. Flood markers have been put in place to provide additional warning to the community – so that they can move to higher ground in case of an emergency. But the core of the problem is of lack of access to viable housing, employment and services that drives people to live in such vulnerable locations. Photo: © Richard Friend

This lack of access to affordable, quality systems and services is perhaps most obvious in terms of water and sanitation. Despite efforts of NGOs and civil society groups, the vast majority of slum dwellers do not have access to toilets. Even when they do gain access to toilets—largely as the result of NGO interventions—over a hundred people have to queue for one toilet. Even such limited access is a huge mark of progress, particularly for women and girls, and especially when they gain access to a toilet that does not have to be shared with men.

Despite such progress, the scale of the deficit remains enormous, not only in Dhaka but across South Asia’s growing cities. And provision of toilets does not always address the ecological and social inequities associated with managing the waste. The drains and water supply pipes come together, causing waste and water to mix. Toilet waste is often emptied onto public lands and into public water bodies, further contributing to the wider ecological deterioration of water systems. This problem becomes the responsibility of a particular caste—a marginalized group of people whose profession is clearing out the human excrement from toilets by hand. This is gruesome stuff: climbing through the pipes, sewers, and pits of the cities’ toilets. The injustices of human shit are both ecological and social.

While the challenges of water and human waste are dramatic in Dhaka, similar stories occur across Asia—India, Pakistan, the Philippines. Water and excrement are the more dramatic side of a broader story that has wider resonance. Across Asia, critical urban systems are often dependent on deteriorating ecological conditions and use infrastructure that was been built in a different time, for different purposes. Demand on these systems is increasing, and increasingly they are failing, while the impacts of climate change—or, to be more accurate, climate variability and uncertainty—become all the more acute.

Again, water illustrates the impacts of climate variability. But it is not only the cities of South Asia that exemplify these challenges. Thailand has being going through an intense drought that began in the 2014-2015 dry season, but has intensified through the last year. The rainy season of 2015 brought far less rain than “normal” years, leaving the large reservoirs that supply water for irrigation, industry, and domestic use at record lows. Once again, farmers have had to make sacrifices for the greater urban good, being forced to abandon irrigated crops. Some critical urban infrastructure has also failed—the main public hospital in Khon Kaen, one of the largest cities in the northeast of Thailand, has had to truck water in to meet its needs, as the reservoirs that supply the city have dried up. Less than five years after an historic flood, Thailand is experiencing an historic drought and temperatures that have beaten the records of the last 65 years.

The failure of urban systems and of the institutions responsible for their management is quite staggering. Perhaps even more staggering is the lack of public discussion around these issues. That is not to say the drought and the heat wave do not get any media coverage. The drought has appeared for several months as a story about the plight of farmers, with an occasional footnote about the potential risk to cities. There was brief coverage about “panic buying” of water in shops. Yet, surprisingly, there has been little effort to raise awareness among water users, encouraging them to reduce their use and conserve supplies, or to have a more in-depth discussion of the root causes of this crisis and its place in a longer historical storyline of shocks and crises.

The urban story about heat has also emerged over the last few weeks. This time of year is always hot, and the Thai New Year, with its tradition of pouring cooling, scented water over the shoulders of elders as a mark of respect, is a cultural response to the peak of the hot season. But again, media coverage of the current heat has been superficial. As with water in Dhaka, the most widely observed adaptation strategy of urban people to heat has been to take advantage of the only public space available: the private, air conditioned shopping malls that push conspicuous consumption on those just trying to cool down. But even these kinds of actions to deal with the heat are not open to all, and come with conditions.

Most disturbingly of all, the connections between the drought and heat wave and climate change are hardly mentioned. Current coverage attributes the drought and heat wave to the El Niño phenomenon (although no action was taken ahead of this year’s El Niño), as if this year is a one-off. Even as the Prime Minister was signing the Paris Agreement, and as Earth Day passed, discussion of climate change seemed to be far from the popular media.

Herein lies a fundamental problem as we look to the future. We know that unless urbanization of the future is very different from current trajectories—especially for a region such as Asia, which is urbanizing rapidly—that our chances of meeting the objectives set out in Paris are extremely limited. We also know that current patterns of urbanization are likely to intensify inequalities and social differentiation. And yet, the “new urban agenda” is not even on the agenda. Not Dhaka’s, anyway.

There are political dimensions to this silence that are difficult to confront. The current military government in Thailand seems dead set on pushing infrastructure investment as a way of reviving the flagging economy. But the approach of the government is investment in old infrastructure that fits neither with with global climate trends, nor with today’s technological trends. The government’s plan demonstrates an almost instinctive propensity for large reservoirs and dams—even if they are to be located in protected forests. Energy demands for the growing urbanizing and industrializing areas are to come from large, coal-fired power plants—even if they are located in marine parks or tourist-dependent coastal areas.

As this pattern of infrastructure investment occurs, the political space is tightly constrained, with little opportunity for public participation and consultation. The government has promised to use the special powers that it granted to itself to push these mega-projects, so that it does not have to abide by legal requirements for environmental and health impact assessments. The advances in environmental legislation are being jettisoned, with Environmental Impact Assessment framed as a meddlesome procedural step that slows down investment. And those who stand up for the concerns of local citizens and of the environment risk being placed on a blacklist. The political pressure on environmental activists and the dilution of already weak environmental legislation certainly is not unique to Thailand. Across Asia, similar trends are unfolding, with the possible exception of Myanmar.

It seems that even while the combined effects of climate change, environmental degradation, and social injustice are more in evidence now than ever, the overall direction of responses is a toxic combination of individualist, market-based solutions, alongside growing, heavy-handed political oppression. The calls for solutions to the challenges of climate change uncertainty and risk to embrace participation, innovation, and informed dialogue amid polycentric, multi-scalar governance mechanisms seem all the more distant. This does not bode well for forging a transformative and inclusive urban future.

It is difficult to imagine how a new urban agenda might be forged without the collective effort of urban citizens; it certainly does not appear that either states or markets left to their own devices will be capable of forging such a transformative future.

Richard Friend
Bangkok

On The Nature of Cities

Marriage Therapy for Ecologists and Landscape Architects

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Hello. Come in. What’s on your mind? Why have you come to chat with me?

“We have such different backgrounds”

Ecologists’ interest start with an exploration of the natural world, its structure and function. Architects and landscape architects start with human needs and how constructed features can answer those needs. Of course you have these different backgrounds, and your training is so different. At most universities your training is even in different colleges; so I am sure there are tensions. But think of what you have in common! You share interests in beauty, quantitative analysis, long-lasting projects, and service to your communities. These are not things to sneeze at, or walk away from.

“I hate it when he ignores me”

You’re both so busy with too much work and not enough help to reach your goals. You’re used to the cultures of your own professions and the traditional partners with whom you work. Reaching out to a different specialty and to people who use different idioms and work in different locations and even dress differently, it’s no surprise that you feel ignored by each other. All new relationships take time and nurturing to get to know each other. You shouldn’t give up on a relationship when it’s just getting started.

“She never calls”

Sometimes when we’re involved in our own professional activities, we neglect to see the moments when another person’s additions or constructive critiques could be of use to us. When we’re advancing our daily chores, it’s hard to stop and say, “I wonder what she would think of this. I wonder if a new perspective from another profession could add something unusual and valuable here.” Often a lack of communication is just a naïve ignorance of how diverse perspectives can add value. Perhaps inaction is not malicious, but it’s just a corollary of not knowing where useful help can be found. This can be overcome.

“He always wants it his way”

When people have lived and worked alone (or in a cubicle, maybe?) for a long time or just worked with people that have similar points of view, they want the internal reward of feeling that they know how to do the project right. Collaborating with someone from a different background is at best challenging and at worst may even seem insulting. Do you sometimes think, “I’ve been doing it one way for so long, now he thinks I’m not doing it right? I’ve been trained one way, my projects have always been approved, and now he thinks my designs won’t work right or are even shabby? Why did I ever ask him for comments?”

It is sometimes hard to take two very different perspectives and mesh them into a greater whole. This is not a battle that one person must win. But think of this professional union as a new creative approach to master. Even in ecology, two very different organisms can work together for an advantage to them both, a mutualism. The organisms usually are quite distinct in their needs and abilities, their niches, but together a more promising and sustainable future is possible. Biotic mutualisms can be a simple model for professional linkages. Let’s stick to the project at hand, not to an attitude that critiques are a personal attack.

“She’s so messy”

Oh, the modernist design idiom is so elegant, so geometric, so understated. Ecological structure is usually asymmetric, variable, and spatially unpredictable. It’s the Odd Couple for creating the landscape. Sometimes irregular landscape ecological designs do seem messy, but “messiness” is a loaded word when we could say diverse or mosaic or idiosyncratic. In a changing world, sometimes complex biotic structures can yield stability, as certain elements fade away and die and others expand under the new conditions. Messy may be a word that’s inappropriate as we advance landscape excellence, even if the habitats don’t have repeating patterns or a uniform size distribution. Let’s think outside the box. Maybe I should say outside the amoeboid shape.

“He’s done so much to hurt me”

Ecologists have been distressed by long lists of built projects that ignore or weaken ecological structure and function, driving thick wedges of disrespect between design professionals and their clients and the people who manage and study natural landscape systems. So often financial arguments trump the importance of restoring ecological systems whose real values (ecological services) are obscure to land owners and regulators and whose contribution to sustain-able communities does not appear in annual municipal budgets. The ecological values are not translated from academic understanding to numbers in a civic ledger that can be used to argue against degradation of those services.

The hurt is to the ecological worker’s ego, the real needs of the community, and the long-term financial plans of a healthy government organization.

The parallel hurt to the designer and client is when an ecologist advances a restoration agenda alone, smugly ignoring the values of a new design for other community goals that are seemingly distant from securing solely ecological services.

boardwalk design Sasaki-RutgersImproving this relationship is going to take some time. I can’t promise a happy ending, of course, but ask you to remember three things: First, your goals for a sustainable, healthy landscape are parallel, not divergent. Keep that in mind when you seem to have momentary troubles communicating. Second, you are both driven to improve the landscape, not watch it continually degrade; remember you’re soul mates, at least in that way. Third, we live in a rapidly changing world, climate, sea levels, movement of species, and mixing of biotic communities. These are all spinning fast towards a future that is hard to predict. Ecologists and designers are our only real protection against the troubles ahead. We need you to work together. Don’t let us down.

See you next week.

Steven N. Handel
New Brunswick

This editorial originally appeared in Ecological Restoration, Vol. 32, No. 1. ©2014 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin. Reproduced with permission.

Mechanisms of Resilience & Other ‘Re-Words’ in Urban Greening

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I recently gave a talk at the Horticulture Society of New York’s annual Healing Nature Forum: Planting the Seeds of Health and Sustainability. As could be expected, there was a lot of talk about Hurricane Sandy’s aftermath, and the role of greening. This, of course, is of great interest to me. In my talk, I presented a large number of so-called ‘re-words,’ words that are common in the discourse of urban ecology and related disciplines. These words are interesting because of what so many of them represent—they are ‘do-over’ words, words that indicate another opportunity, a second chance. They suggest alternate endings and outcomes, improved performance or satisfaction, a kind of optimism and hopefulness that a second chance means a better conclusion.

Re-wordsMy interest in these re-words stems from the broader philosophical underpinnings of my work on Greening in the Red Zone. Though in a direct sense this work is focused on how humans interact with nature in the midst of and in the aftermath of calamity, and how that interaction is a very important but underappreciated source of resilience and recovery, in a broader sense my work on nature and green spaces in hazard and vulnerability contexts is about playing a hunch. The hunch is that perhaps a key to this idea we are collectively chasing called sustainability is in essence a focused understanding of how our species remembers and reconstitutes relationships with the rest of nature when serious calamity occurs, when the proverbial ‘stuff’ hits the fan.

What can we learn about how humans relate and reconnect with nature in dire circumstances? And how can that learning about what we do in urgent circumstances be applied to longer term thinking about sustainability and resilience?

In addressing these broader questions, I find that my work is mostly about a kind of archeology of the human social-ecological experience, trying to excavate and peel back the layers of history that have covered over our ecological identity. I am interested in this because fundamentally I believe that our species faces very dark days indeed if we cannot remember our ecological identity and recover a relationship with the ecosystems upon which we depend. Given the challenges facing society and our planet, remembering and recovering our individual and collective ecological identity is of the utmost urgency. However hopeless this endeavor feels in daily life, it is when we are faced with calamity that our withering ecological identity suddenly flushes and blooms, and becomes more clearly important to our survival.

Bamboo patch in Tsu City Japan serves as a kind of memorial to forested coastal places themselves, a ‘remembering the importance of nature’ and ‘build back better’ theme in post 3-11 Japan. Photo: Keith Tidball.
Bamboo patch in Tsu City Japan serves as a kind of memorial to forested coastal places themselves, a ‘remembering the importance of nature’ and ‘build back better’ theme in post 3-11 Japan. Photo: Keith Tidball.

I have documented and expounded on arguments that creation and access to green spaces promotes individual human health, especially in therapeutic contexts among those suffering traumatic events elsewhere.

But what of the role of access to green space and the act of creating and caring for such places in promoting social health and well-being, at neighborhood, community, and even city-wide scales? The forthcoming book Greening in the Red Zone asserts that creation and access to green spaces confers resilience and recovery in systems, from individual human systems to regional and landscape scale systems, which have been disrupted by violent conflict, crisis, or disaster. This edited volume provides evidence for this assertion through cases and examples. The contributors to the volume use a variety of research and policy frameworks to explore how creation and access to green spaces in extreme situations might contribute to resistance, recovery, and resilience of social-ecological systems.

Fundamental to the book is the argument put forward by Berkes and Folke (1998): systems that demonstrate resilience appear to have learned to recognize feedback, and therefore possess ‘mechanisms by which information from the environment can be received, processed, and interpreted’ (p. 21, emphasis added). In this sense, these scholars go further than simply recognizing that people are part of ecological systems, but attempt to explore the means, or social mechanisms, that bring about the conditions needed for adaptation in the face of disturbance and other processes fundamental to social-ecological system resilience. One such social mechanism extensively documented by Berkes and colleagues is traditional ecological knowledge (Berkes 2004; Berkes, Colding, & Folke 2000; Berkes and Turner 2006; Davidson-Hunt and Berkes 2003; see also Shava et al. 2010).

But what other social mechanisms might exist and how does one identify and describe these mechanisms in often urban post-disaster scenarios?

As a result of editing and writing this book, I have become very interested in tracking down the following questions:

What processes or mechanisms might explain the phenomena of Greening in the Red Zone?

Why do people turn to nature and green spaces as sources, sites, and systems of resilience and other re-words?

To date, my list of processes/mechanisms that might explain the emergence/persistence of Greening in the Red Zone includes five processes:

(1)  Urgent Biophilia

(2)  Restorative Topophilia

(3)  Memorialization Mechanisms

(4)  Social-ecological Symbols and Social-ecological Rituals; and

(5)  Discourses of Defiance.

Each of these has been (or will be) explored below, and also in a peer reviewed journal article or book chapter (see below).

Processes and mechanisms theorized to explain why people turn to greening in crisis. Credit Keith Tidball
Processes and mechanisms theorized to explain why people turn to greening in crisis. Credit Keith Tidball

I will briefly describe each of these mechanisms in the following paragraphs, and conclude with some caveats and areas for future work.

Urgent biophilia

Urgent biophilia is the affinity we humans have for the rest of nature, the process of remembering that attraction, and the urge to express it through creation of restorative environments, which may also restore or increase ecological function, and may confer resilience across multiple scales. So, when faced with a disaster, as individuals and as communities and populations, we seek engagement with nature to summon and demonstrate resilience in the face of a crisis, we are demonstrating an urgent biophilia.

Urgent biophilia represents an important set of human-nature interactions in social-ecological systems (SES) characterized by hazard, disaster, or vulnerability, often appearing in the ‘backloop’ of the adaptive cycle (Holling and Gunderson 2002). Urgent biophilia builds upon contemporary work on principles of biological attraction (Agnati et al 2009) as well as earlier work on biophilia while synthesizing literatures on restorative environments, community-based ecological restoration, and both community and social-ecological disaster resilience.

The adaptive cycle, meant to be a tool for thought, focuses attention upon processes of destruction and reorganization, which are often neglected in favor of growth and conservation. In this adaptation, urgent biophilia is modeled. For more on the adaptive cycle, see the Resilience Alliance website.
The adaptive cycle, meant to be a tool for thought, focuses attention upon processes of destruction and reorganization, which are often neglected in favor of growth and conservation. In this adaptation, urgent biophilia is modeled. For more on the adaptive cycle, see the Resilience Alliance website.

Restorative topophilia

This mechanism is yin to the yang of urgent biophilia. Here, drawing upon Tuan’s notion of topophilia (literally ‘love of place’), I am emphasizing a social actor’s attachment to place and the symbolic meanings that underlie this attachment. In contrast to urgent biophilia, restorative topophilia is conceived and operationalized as more experiential and ‘constructed’ rather than innate, and suggests that topophilia serves as a powerful base for individual and collective actions that repair and/or enhance valued attributes of place. These restorative greening actions are based not only on attachment—people fight for the places they care about—but also on meanings, which define the kinds of places people are fighting for.

An important implication of the juxtaposition of urgent biophilia and restorative topophilia is the conceptualization of positive dependency. This idea suggest that purely-deficit based perspectives regarding urban social-ecological systems and the human populations within them represent barriers to these systems’ ability to move from undesirable system states into more desirable, sustainable ones. A characterization of issues such as individual ecological identity, human exceptionalism and exemptionalism, anthropocentrism, and resource dependence is offered, in order to better examine notions found in the resource dependency literature, such as the roots of ideas about dependency. This literature is used as a springboard into the possibilities of an antipodal notion of resource dependency that may be applicable in urban contexts, named positive dependency.

Positive dependency as a concept allows us to escape the misguided conclusions potentially drawn by resource dependence arguments that the more that humans depend on natural resources, especially for tangible needs, the more those humans become vulnerable, the more their resilience is compromised. While attempting to recover or reconcile our relationship with nature, we may not need the contradictory message that “the less we are forced to depend upon nature, the better off we are” rattling around our heads. Rather, we can benefit by contributing to the evolution of resource dependency thinking to include the at once simple yet profound idea that “the more we acknowledge our dependence on nature, especially in urban contexts, the more resilient we can be.”  Two possible sources of positive dependency in urban social-ecological systems are suggested, urgent biophilia and restorative topophilia. An important conclusion is the recognition of positive dependency as a precursor to the development of a heightened sense of ecological self and sense of ecological place in urban social-ecological systems.

New Orleans is famous for its live oak lined streets. After Hurricane Katrina, restorative topophilia could be observed via residents leveraging place attachment and taking action to restore New Orleans’ sense of place. This was especially visible as a greening “rebirth” movement sprang up and included tree planting and tree rescues, especially of iconic live oak trees, some of which are over 100 years old. Photo: Keith Tidball
New Orleans is famous for its live oak lined streets. After Hurricane Katrina, restorative topophilia could be observed via residents leveraging place attachment and taking action to restore New Orleans’ sense of place. This was especially visible as a greening “rebirth” movement sprang up and included tree planting and tree rescues, especially of iconic live oak trees, some of which are over 100 years old. Photo: Keith Tidball

Memorialization Mechanisms

A memorialization mechanism begins right after a crisis, when spontaneous and collective memorialization of lost family members or community members through gardening, tree planting, or other civic ecology practices happens. Then a community of practice emerges to act upon and apply these memories to social learning about greening practices. This, in turn, may lead to new kinds of learning, including about collective efficacy and ecosystem services production, through feedback between remembering, learning, and enhancing individual, social, and environmental well-being.

The USDA Forest Service project Living Memorials illustrates the power of the memorialization mechanism. This map depicts Living Memorial sites memorializing 9/11 across the U.S. Image: courtesy of US Forest Service Living Memorials Project
The USDA Forest Service project Living Memorials illustrates the power of the memorialization mechanism. This map depicts Living Memorial sites memorializing 9/11 across the U.S. Image: courtesy of US Forest Service Living Memorials Project

Social-ecological symbols and social-ecological rituals

Social-ecological rituals can be understood as storehouses of meaningful symbols by which information is revealed and regarded as authoritative, as dealing with the crucial values of the community (Turner and International African Institute 1968:2; Deflem 1991). In post-Katrina New Orleans, reforestation activities emerged as rituals by which information that represented a counter-narrative to news media and others who spoke of New Orleans as a ‘failure of resilience’ was revealed and regarded as authoritative. Post-Katrina reforestation rituals acted as storehouses of multiple meaningful tree symbols dealing with crucial community values and concepts such as place attachment and sense of place, resilience and resistance, hope and commitment, and survival and stability.

But tree planting rituals and the symbols contained in them reveal more than crucial social values. They are also transformative for human attitudes and behavior, and therefore the handling of tree symbols in ritual exposes the power of tree symbols to act upon and change the persons involved in ritual performance. Whereas New Orleans  residents may have been attracted to tree symbols and rituals for reasons such as urgent biophilia, restorative topophilia, positive dependency, biological impulses combined with socio-cultural phenomena, for instance, recalling social-ecological memories (Barthel, Folke et al. 2010), involvement in memorialization mechanisms, or the clear connection of trees to notions of stability and re-birth, my work in New Orleans suggests that subsequent participation in tree planting rituals appears to change the persons involved such that they experience renewed hope, optimism, and sense of commitment to their neighborhood and to their city, important indicators of community resilience.

Graphic depiction of concepts, themes, connectivity, and relevance from research in New Orleans from 2006 - 2012. Note the closeness of concepts of trees and tree with New Orleans, homes, and neighborhood, indicating strong symbolic significance in trees and ideas of place. Credit: Keith Tidball
Graphic depiction of concepts, themes, connectivity, and relevance from research in New Orleans from 2006 – 2012. Note the closeness of concepts of trees and tree with New Orleans, homes, and neighborhood, indicating strong symbolic significance in trees and ideas of place. Credit: Keith Tidball

I have documented how New Orleans residents organized around a particular area of knowledge and activity (trees and tree planting) and developed or reconstituted rituals and symbols that at once reinforced and reinvented the accumulated knowledge of the community via a distributed community of practice centered on trees and tree planting after Katrina. This, I argue, contributed to enhancing a sense of joint enterprise and identity, and therefore contributed to the resilience of the New Orleans social-ecological system. New Orleans residents also continue to plant and steward trees, directly adding to the biomass, future urban tree canopy, and the potential capacity of the urban social-ecological system to produce critical ecosystem services. In so doing tree symbols, tree planting rituals, and those involved in them simultaneously present both a source of and a demonstration of individual, community, and social-ecological system resilience.

Multiple symbolic meanings of trees in different contexts derived from interview data in post-Katrina New Orleans. The chart depicts three broad families of symbolic meanings of trees: (A) trees themselves as symbols (their presence, their absence, their status); (B) tree planting as a kind of symbol or symbolic action; and (C) both trees and tree planting explicitly combined in the discourse. The presence of tree symbols, the social-ecological memories that define them and that inform the rituals that perpetuate them, and the resulting social-ecological relationships between people and trees or forests, as expressed through symbols and rituals, reveals a possible mechanism within the greening in the red zone system, and a source of resilience in this kind of urban social-ecological system undergoing rapid change. Credit: Keith Tidball
Multiple symbolic meanings of trees in different contexts derived from interview data in post-Katrina New Orleans. The chart depicts three broad families of symbolic meanings of trees: (A) trees themselves as symbols (their presence, their absence, their status); (B) tree planting as a kind of symbol or symbolic action; and (C) both trees and tree planting explicitly combined in the discourse. The presence of tree symbols, the social-ecological memories that define them and that inform the rituals that perpetuate them, and the resulting social-ecological relationships between people and trees or forests, as expressed through symbols and rituals, reveals a possible mechanism within the greening in the red zone system, and a source of resilience in this kind of urban social-ecological system undergoing rapid change. Credit: Keith Tidball

Discourses of defiance

As discussed in the above section describing the importance of tree symbols and tree rituals as counter-narratives, the discourses of defiance mechanism is focused specifically on the importance of the use of social-ecological symbols and rituals, memorialization, restorative topophilia, and urgent biophilia to resist or reshape the conversation about where one resides and the people living there. This mechanism was first explored in my work in New Orleans, as residents resisted initial discourses promulgated by the news media essentially “writing off” New Orleans as a failed, or worse, feral city. Residents used many of the mechanisms above to reframe the discourse to reflect a more hopeful, more optimistic, recovery and rebirth oriented conversation.

More recently, working with my colleagues at the US Forest Service Urban Field Station in New York City with funding from the TKF Foundation, we have begun to more deeply explore these discourses of defiance in places like Detroit, Michigan, which despite years of economic decline and disinvestment is emerging as a sort of greening and urban agriculture mecca; and in Joplin, MO which has worked tirelessly and enthusiastically to create a positive and redemptive community response to the aftermath of  an EF-5 tornado that destroyed a large swath of the city and killed 161 people. We are currently working in New York City areas hard hit by hurricane Sandy as well.

Trees and tree symbols figured prominently into the discourse around the tornado in Joplin, as demonstrated in early New York Times reporting on the disaster. Residents recognized the power of trees as social-ecological symbols and reshaped the discourse in Joplin, using the tree symbols to point to brighter futures. Photos: Keith Tidball
Trees and tree symbols figured prominently into the discourse around the tornado in Joplin, as demonstrated in early New York Times reporting on the disaster. Residents recognized the power of trees as social-ecological symbols and reshaped the discourse in Joplin, using the tree symbols to point to brighter futures. Photos: Keith Tidball

Conclusion

A growing network of social and ecological scientists argue that change is to be expected and planned for, and that identifying sources and mechanisms of resilience in the face of change is crucial to the long-term well-being of humans, their communities, and the local environment. Yet, as has been pointed out elsewhere, several gaps in the resilience literature persist, including (1) a lack of studies focused on cultural systems (Wright and Masten 2005), (2) relatively few studies that explicitly re-embed humans in ecosystems, and (3) a need for more studies that integrate the theory and science of individual human resilience with broader ecological systems theory and research exemplified by social-ecological systems resilience scholarship (Masten and Obradovic 2008). In introducing the reader to the five mechanisms above, I hope to have outlined an attempt to address these gaps by asking two fundamental questions.

First, I ask “Why do humans turn to greening in the wake of conflict and disaster?”

This question invites us as humans to revisit our relationship with the rest of nature, and to ask ourselves what we may learn from ourselves, given our behaviors in urgent or dire circumstances.

Second, I ask “Of what use might greening in human vulnerability and security contexts be in managing social-ecological systems for resilience?”

This question alludes to application, in planning and policy making fields, in natural resource management, and in fields of disaster preparedness, mitigation, and recovery. Both questions belie a desire to conceptualize human systems as nested within ecological systems, and therefore human resilience as nested within ecological resilience, especially in disaster resilience contexts (Gunderson 2010). The answers to these questions seem to be timely given continuing worries about conflict over access to resources, climate change, and overpopulation and the red zones that will inevitably emerge. The ways in which we as humans reorganize, learn, recover and demonstrate resilience through remembering and operationalizing the value of our relationships with elements of our shared ecologies in the direst of circumstances such as disaster and war hold clues to how we might increase human resilience to new surprises, while contributing sources of social-ecological resilience to ecosystems.

Keith Tidball
Ithaca, New York USA

 

Citations

Agnati, L., F. Baluska, P. Barlow and D. Guidolin (2009). “Mosaic, Self-similiarity Logic, and Biological Attraction Principles: Three Explanatory Instruments in Biology.” Communicative and Integrative Biology 2(6): 552-563.

Barthel, S., C. Folke and J. Colding (2010). “Social-ecological memory in urban gardens–Retaining the capacity for management of ecosystem services.” Global Environmental Change 20(2): 255-265.

Berkes, F. (2004). Knowledge, Learning and the Resilience of Social-Ecological Systems. Knowledge for the Development of Adaptive Co-Management. Tenth Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property, Oaxaca, MX.

Berkes, F., J. Colding and C. Folke (2000). “Rediscovery of traditional ecological knowledge as adaptive management.” Ecological Applications 10: 1251-1262.

Berkes, F. and C. Folke, Eds. (1998). Linking social and ecological systems. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Berkes, F. and N. J. Turner (2006). “Knowledge, learning and the evolution of conservation practice for social-ecological system resilience.” Human Ecology 34: 479-494.

Davidson-Hunt, I. and F. Berkes (2003). “Learning as you journey: Anishinaabe perception of social-ecological environments and adaptive learning.” Conservation Ecology 8(5).

Deflem, M. (1991). “Ritual, anti-structure, and religion: A discussion of Victor Turner’s processual symbolic analysis.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 30(1): 1-25.

Gunderson, L. (2010). “Ecological and Human Community Resilience in Response to Natural Disasters.” Ecology and Society 15(2): 18.

Holling, C. S. and L. Gunderson (2002). Resilience and Adaptive Cycles. Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems. L. Gunderson and C. S. Holling. Washington, D.C., Island Press.

Masten, A. S. and J. Obradovic (2008). “Disaster preparation and recovery: Lessons from research on resilience in human development.” Ecology and Society 13(1): 9.

Shava, S., M. E. Krasny, K. G. Tidball and C. Zazu (2010). “Agricultural knowledge in urban and resettled communities: Applications to social–ecological resilience and environmental education.” Environmental Education Research (Special Issue, Resilience in social-ecological systems: The role of learning and education) 16(5): 325-329.

Tidball, K. and M. Krasny, Eds. (2013). Greening in the Red Zone: Disaster, Resilience, and Community Greening. New York, Springer.

Tidball, K. and R. Stedman (2013). “Positive dependency and virtuous cycles: From resource dependence to resilience in urban social-ecological systems.” Ecological Economics 86(0): 292-299.

Tidball, K. G. (2012). “Urgent Biophilia: Human-Nature Interactions and Biological Attractions in Disaster Resilience.” Ecology and Society 17(2).

Tidball, K. G., M. Krasny, E. Svendsen, L. Campbell and K. Helphand (2010). “Stewardship, Learning, and Memory in Disaster Resilience.” Environmental Education Research (Special Issue, Resilience in social-ecological systems: The role of learning and education) 16(5-6): 591-609.

Turner, V. W. and International African Institute (1968). The drums of affliction: a study of religious processes among the Ndembu of Zambia. Oxford, London, International African Institute.

Wright, M. O. and A. S. Masten (2005). Resilience processes in development: fostering positive adaptation in the context of adversity. Handbook of resilience in children. S. Goldstein and R. Brooks. New York, New York, USA, Kluwer Academic/Plenum: 17-37

 

 

 

Metropolis under Emergency: A Board Game to Plan Resilient Cities while Considering Place Attachment

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Place attachment can either hinder a community’s ability to evacuate after a natural disaster, or it may serve as a fundamental building block to improve evacuation procedures, which in turn can contribute in the creation of resilient communities.

To plan resilient cities is a complex task. It involves making decisions that involve the built, social, economic, and environmental development of a territory, including unexpected changes, such as those caused by extreme natural events. The effects of earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and fires, among other disturbances, need to be studied, anticipated and included in the planning process of cities, in order to plan for the proper adaptation of human settlements, and for being better prepared to cope in a future disastrous event.

This issue takes more relevance in countries which have made a commitment to follow the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, which among other things, makes a call to build resilient communities. Chile, among 187 other countries, signed this protocol. However, and regardless of the many efforts made to be better prepared for future disasters, the planning of resilient cities in Chile has not been properly addressed. Various studies, laws, norms, building codes, and reconstruction plans have been developed for this purpose, but these plans target mitigation strategies and the reduction of vulnerabilities only, instead of addressing community resilience.

Planning resilient cities becomes even more complex if we want to include the perceptual dimension of resilience. This dimension relates to how people perceive their territory and the extent that perception influences their actions. A key factor in the perceptual dimension of resilience is the concept of place attachment—that is the affective feelings that people develop towards where they are born and where they live. These places fulfill a fundamental function in the life of the people (Hernández et al. 2007). Place attachment is particularly relevant in disaster prone environments in particular, because it has been proven to influence people’s decision to evacuation in the event of a disaster (Berroeta et al., 2015; Dominicis et al., 2015).

Based on previous research developed in the Landscape and Urban Resilience Laboratory (PRULAB), we created a game called Metropolis under Emergency. The objective of the game is to explore how to plan resilient cities in the Chilean coastal environment subject to extreme tsunamic events, and considering in particular the perceptual dimension of resilience. In this essay we report on how the game works and the planning ideas resulting from its application.

The game

The objective of the game is to improve place attachment to security zones of coastal resilient communities, or the site where people should go to in case of a tsunami alert. It is important to mention that most of the security zones in Chile are located within natural environments 30 meters above sea level, without easy access for the community (which is mostly located at sea level), and lacking of any kind of built infrastructure. The action of the games emerges from the observation that after a tsunami, and regardless of the many trials and education programs given to the community on how and where to evacuate, most people have difficulty arriving at the security zone: they do not follow instructions provided in case of a real event. People either stay at home or prefer to use other sites for security, obstructing the role of emergency institutions which, in turn, affects the adaptation capacity, or the resilience of the entire community. Increasing place attachment to the security zones could improve evacuation procedures and adaptation capacities; thereby improving the resilience of cities. Hence, the objective of the game is for the players to include infrastructure and activities in the security zone, in order to build attachment to the security zone, which in turn, will assure a good evacuation process. The players are experts in emergency and land use planning who have the duty to plan the location as well as the characteristics of security zones.

Figure 1a. The game in process. Photo: Paula Villagra
Figure 1b. The game in process. Photo: Paula Villagra

The game took place after a seminar called Applied Resilience: Approaches and Implications of Risk Perception and Place Attachment to Urban Planning and Design, which was focused on the role of perception in the planning of resilient cities. During this seminar, participants learned about what it means to plan resilient cities and the specific role of place attachment on the adaptive capacity of the community. Coastal planners, urbanists, architects, environmental psychologist and sociologists lead presentations and discussions on various topics with the participants. The game was applied during a four-hour session right after the Applied Resilience seminar (Fig 1a,b).

During the game, participants were provided a tight budget to be used to buy a set of goods and services to be incorporated into the security zones of costal towns for the purpose of increasing place attachment. The goods and services were identified by the local community of each town in previous studies and included a wide variety of topics, from more participation and education on emergency issues, to the construction of specific infrastructure, and new security areas. Measures of place attachment to the security zones were also identified in previous studies and were provided to participants for reference (Fig 2).

Figure 2. Example of the information sheet given to each team (Town of Mehuín). It includes a map of the town with the oficial evacuation routes and security zones. The graph in the upper part, shows the security zones in the x axis and the goods and services in the y axis. The wider the icon representing the goods and services the more important for people. In the same graph, the mean place attachment value is provided for each security zone (the scale is 1 to 7, considering 7 to be the highest value). To the right hand side, some demographic, emergency and socio-economic information is provided. Image: Paula Villagra

During the game, three teams were formed of four to five professionals each, from different emergency and planning institutions. Participants were from the National Emergency Office (ONEMI), the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism (MINVU), Rescue Teams (SAR), local municipalities and psychologists involved in emergency procedures. A moderator, familiar with the study sites, was assigned to each team. In addition, a treasurer, in charge of managing the budget, and a supplier of goods and services, were assigned to each team.

The towns were coastal areas under tsunami risk: Mehuín, Queule, and Puerto Saavedra. These towns include urban, rural and indigenous communities and have a Civil Protection Plan in case of Tsunami, which identifies the location of the safety zones. (See the Example of Mehuín here.) A map of each town was given to each team for allocating the goods and services in places they think best for creating attachment to security zones.

An important consideration for the game is that the budget given to each team was not enough to buy all goods and services required in each town; hence, the challenge of the game was to select what to include in the security areas in order to obtain the greatest possible benefits for the resilience of the towns and the place attachment to security zones. For this purpose, an interdisciplinary discussion was encouraged among the members of each team. Considering that all participants came from different areas of emergency planning, such a discussion would lead on one hand, to justify why certain actions are priorities over others, and on the other hand, to use the resources in the most efficient way possible to increase the place attachment measure in the security areas.

Resilience planning ideas

From the strategies proposed by each team, two of them stand out because they are able to increase city resilience and attachment to security areas at the same time. One refers to ‘planning for multifunctionality’ and the other to ‘planning for social capital’.

Figure 3. Example of the distribution of goods and services in three security zones located in a natural environment near the town of Mehuín. The team decided to equip them with basic infraestructure (toilets and water), to improve the acces road and the ground of the sites, and to include fascilities to improve familiarity with the area (e.g. lookouts) and emergency education on site (e.g. shelter). In addition, accesibility among them is provided by a walk through the forest. Photo: Paula Villagra

Planning for multifunctionality means equipping security areas with various functions and infrastructure and at the same time, generating an interconnected system of security areas that allow people to move between them in the search for satisfying the specific needs that arise in the event of a disaster (Fig. 3). With the multifunctionality strategy, each security zone does not have to be equipped with all types of infrastructure, because among all of them they can meet the community needs after disaster. Regardless of this, at least two security zones need to have similar functions. In this manner, resilience can be achieved through the redundancy of security zones, because if one security zone collapses, another can fulfill its role.

At the same time, multifunctionality involves considering a temporal dimension. The security areas and the paths among them should be accessible during daily life—for example, by implementing a network of walks and lookouts in a natural environment—as well as in case of an emergency. In this way, place attachment can be ensured by building familiarity with these areas and by incorporating equipment considered ideal for a security area by the community.

This strategy is particularly relevant for towns characterized by having more urban areas in which the access and familiarity to natural environments is uncommon for their community.

Planning for social capital means strengthening the social fabric of communities. It refers to generating strategies that point to the interaction among emergency agencies, and between them with the local community. In this way, an informed and interconnected social group is generated to improve the adaptation to the disaster. The social capital strategy put emphasis on the activities that take place in the security areas, and based on these, it is determined what infrastructure is needed. For example, it is suggested to generate emergency education programs and informative talks about the disasters, to educate about how disasters originate and how to behave after them. Security areas should be equipped to host these activities, for example, by having social headquarters or shelters equipped with multifunctional rooms to congregate the community in non-emergency situations.

In this way, place attachment forms over time, by associating concrete activities of survival with the security areas. Also, resilience is addressed as increasing social capital leads to the improvement of community responsiveness in the event of a disaster. The greater the social capital, the greater the ability of the community to adapt after a major disturbance. This strategy is particularly useful in rural and indigenous areas of Chile, where built infrastructure is lacking as well as the services provided by emergency institutions before, during and after a disaster (Villagra and Quintana 2017).

The outcomes of the game presented here are interesting in two ways. First, it was possible to find planning strategies that address both, city resilience and attachment to security areas. This was possible by considering two resilient variables that are widely discussed in the literature; these refer to the multifunctionality of urban spaces (Allan et al., 2013; Villagra and Dobbie, 2014) and social capital (Aldrich, 2011; González-Muzzio, 2013). Second, today it is more common to find studies that suggest how to plan resilient cities than finding applied examples in a specific environment. In this manner, this game can be thought of as a contribution to the application of research findings and theory into the planning of resilient cities, considering the perceptual dimension of resilience, which is often neglected during planning processes. Considering that the game is easy to and cost-effective to implement, we encourage its use as a platform for putting research into practice.

I would like to thank CONICYT Project N.1150137 for funding this initiative, and also thank you to Silvia Ariccio, Carolina Quintana and Isabel Guerrero for their enthusiastic collaboration during the creation of the game.

Paula Villagra
Valdivia

On The Nature of Cities

References

Aldrich, Daniel. 2011. ‘The power of people: social capital’s role in recovery from the 1995 Kobe earthquake’, Natural Hazards, 56: 595-611.

Allan, Penny, Martin Bryant, Camila Wirsching, Daniela Garcia, and Maria Teresa Rodriguez. 2013. ‘The Influence of Urban Morphology on the Resilience of Cities Following an Earthquake’, Journal of Urban Design, 18 242-62.

Berroeta, Hector, Alvaro Ramoneda, Viviana Rodriguez, Andres Di Masso, and Tomeu Vidal. 2015. ‘Apego de lugar, identidad de lugar, sentido de comunidad y participación cívica en personas desplazadas de la ciudad de Chaitén.’, MAGALLANIA, 43: 51-63.

Dominicis, Stefano De, Ferdinando Fornara, Uberta Ganucci Cancellieri, Clare Twigger-Ross, and Marino Bonaiuto. 2015. ‘We are at risk, and so what? Place attachment, environmental risk perceptions and preventive coping behaviours’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 43: 66-78.

González-Muzzio, Claudia. 2013. ‘El rol del lugar y el capital social en la resiliencia comunitaria posdesastre. Aproximaciones mediante un estudio de caso después del terremoto del 27/F’, EURE, 117: 25-48.

Hernández, B., M. Hidalgo, M. Salazar-Laplace, and S. Hess. 2007. ‘Journal of Environmental Psychology’, Place attachment and place identity in natives and non-natives, 27: 310-19.

Villagra, Paula, and Meredith Dobbie. 2014. ‘Design aspects of urban wetlands in an earthquake-prone environment’, Journal of Urban Design, 19: 660–81.

Villagra, Paula, and Carolina Quintana. 2017. ‘Disaster Governance for Community Resilience in Coastal Towns: Chilean Case Studies’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14. Doi: 10.3390/ijerph14091063

 

Micro_Urban: The Ecological and Social Potential of Small-Scale Urban Spaces

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Small-scale urban spaces can be rich in biodiversity, contribute important ecological benefits for human mental and physical health (McPhearson et al., 2013), and overall help to create more livable cities. Micro_urban spaces are the sandwich spaces between buildings, rooftops, walls, curbs, sidewalk cracks, and other small-scale urban spaces that exist in the fissures between linear infrastructure (e.g. roads, bridges, tunnels, rail lines) and our three dimensional gridded cities.

But most of these micro_urban spaces are overlooked, unrecognized, and even invisible parts of our urban lives. Perhaps our inattention to these spaces is because they so often exist in between our more highly valued built spaces such as large parks, plazas, waterfront promenades, urban forests, rivers and much loved neighborhoods. One of the great biodiversity challenges for urban ecosystems is to solve the problem of high levels of habitat fragmentation in cities.

What if the micro_urban were the missing piece to solving the connectivity puzzle in our fragmented urban ecologies?

Credit: Sophia Jose, Josh Snow, Eliot Benis, Kayla Paeglis, David Braha, Ashley Padget. An example of a durational micro-space titled “Permeable Futures” by students from the Temporary Works class in the BS urban Design and BFA Integrated Design program at Parsons the New School for Design, taught by Adam Brent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk54Eun0SSU
An example of a durational micro-space titled “Permeable Futures” by students from the Temporary Works class in the BS urban Design and BFA Integrated Design program at Parsons the New School for Design, taught by Adam Brent. Credit: Sophia Jose, Josh Snow, Eliot Benis, Kayla Paeglis, David Braha, Ashley Padget.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk54Eun0SSU

These elements and experiences remain underutilized in ecological urban design practice yet are a ubiquitous feature of our urban infrastructure. Even low-level investment in these micro-spaces could provide new grounds for ecosystems to establish, for urban dwellers to socialize, and contribute to both well-being and community resilience to the many dynamic changes affecting social-ecological attributes of our urban lives.

A networked urban ecology

One of the critical biodiversity challenges in cities is dealing high levels of habitat fragmentation. Creating corridors between fragmented green patches in highly heterogeneous landscapes is difficult in older cities with dense built and technological infrastructure. And yet cities have immense potential for linking urban parks, wild spaces, and small green patches through green roofs, green roadways, and other corridor infrastructure that could provide species greater ability to move and migrate while increasing more equitable spread of ecological space throughout cities.

Micro_urban takes this idea further. Rather than a corridor approach that links already existing big green fragments we have been talking about how micro-spaces in any neighborhood with or without parks and with or without corridors could be networked or clustered to provide a networked ecology in cities. By seeing green roofs, green walls, sandwich spaces between buildings, and durational spaces together we have begun to imagine how people in cities could beginning greening well beyond new parks or retrofitted railways. How might micro_urban habitats that are networked throughout the city; up, over, around, and through our built and social infrastructure then make a difference in the social and ecological well-being of a city?

Walking

Recently, at the invitation of Mary Miss, we developed a guided walk for the City as Living Lab (CaLL) project. We took participants on a tour through the Garment District in New York and we asked them to recognize the potential for these micro_urban spaces to make a difference in the lives of both human and non-human species. We then went to the roof of the Port Authority Bus Terminal parking lot and through a simple drawing exercise we let each participant’s own desires and goals drive their own ideas of the micro_urban.

Credit: CaLL walk participants meeting at the corner of 39th and Broadway in New York. CaLL. is an initiative spearheaded by artist Mary Miss to establish a platform for artists, working in collaboration with scientists, urban planners, policy makers, and the public, to make sustainability tangible through the arts. CaLL asks: by what means can we foster roles for artists and designers to shape and bring attention to the pressing environmental issues of our times?
CaLL walk participants meeting at the corner of 39th and Broadway in New York. CaLL. is an initiative spearheaded by artist Mary Miss to establish a platform for artists, working in collaboration with scientists, urban planners, policy makers, and the public, to make sustainability tangible through the arts. CaLL asks: by what means can we foster roles for artists and designers to shape and bring attention to the pressing environmental issues of our times?

We took our inspiration for both the location in the Garment District and a way to focus our ideas on micro_urban from ongoing micro_urban research on Fourteenth Street in lower Manhattan (see references at the end of this essay) and from a visiting Parsons School for Design student, Yanisa Chumpolphaisal, a 2013 Graduate from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and a visiting student in the Parsons BS Urban Design program. She created a project titled “The Art of Capital” where she mapped the billboard corners, sandwich spaces, and the landscape of setback roof spaces in the Garment District.

Credit: Yanisa Chumpolphaisal. The colors on the map can be read as follows: Light Blue - billboard corners, Dark Blue - sandwich spaces. Numbers mark the height of the buildings. Yellow border is the historic district where many setback roof spaces are found – a response to the 1911 zoning code that set building height and bulk limits in order to provided for light and air in the street canyon – creating a ‘wedding cake’ urban form.
The colors on the map can be read as follows: Light Blue – billboard corners, Dark Blue – sandwich spaces. Numbers mark the height of the buildings. Yellow border is the historic district where many setback roof spaces are found – a response to the 1911 zoning code that set building height and bulk limits in order to provided for light and air in the street canyon – creating a ‘wedding cake’ urban form. Credit: Yanisa Chumpolphaisal.

This map served as the launching point for the CaLL Walk we developed. As you can see from Yanisa’s drawings, once you start to look for these small overlooked, underutilized spaces you find that they are evenly scattered throughout the city, by accident, by design, and by history; nearly everywhere in this area.

Yanisa Chumpolphaisal. A billboard corner is typically a one or two story building that has a giant billboard on top of the roof. A sandwich space is typically found in the middle of a block and is a small and narrow building adjacent to very tall buildings. A setback roof space is typically found both on the street side and the inner-block side of a building.
A billboard corner is typically a one or two story building that has a giant billboard on top of the roof. A sandwich space is typically found in the middle of a block and is a small and narrow building adjacent to very tall buildings. A setback roof space is typically found both on the street side and the inner-block side of a building. Credit: Yanisa Chumpolphaisal

Yanisa’s familiarity with soi (small alleys in Bangkok) helped her imagine this area with new eyes Her images reveal how she started imagining what could be done with these spaces. How they could have positive impacts on the lives of local residents if they were reimagined as ecological and social space, and be an opportunity for improving the Garment District as a support system for artists.

Yanisa expanded on the way urban residents in Thailand and New York take advantage of every opportunity for socializing, and for small business. From this she drew possibilities between the social life and micro-spaces in the Garment District in New York. Right now those billboard corners, sandwich spaces, and setbacks are virtually bare of anything living.

Indeed, the more you look you begin to realize that the unmet potential is vast.

Credit: Yanisa Chumpolphaisal. “The Art of Capital” project engages horizontal and vertical spaces as opportunities for imagining new possibilities for ecological and social life in the city. These urban welders foster the co-existence of artists, manufacturers, small and mass retailers, to create a cycle of development within which these different cultures can nurture one another. She writes, “I am interested in blurring economic and cultural capital. Like anti-monuments how can these scattered parcels create an urban form that is a reflection of power, rather than a symbol of it?”
“The Art of Capital” project engages horizontal and vertical spaces as opportunities for imagining new possibilities for ecological and social life in the city. These urban welders foster the co-existence of artists, manufacturers, small and mass retailers, to create a cycle of development within which these different cultures can nurture one another. She writes, “I am interested in blurring economic and cultural capital. Like anti-monuments how can these scattered parcels create an urban form that is a reflection of power, rather than a symbol of it?” Credit: Yanisa Chumpolphaisal

One of the main thrusts of urban ecological research and practice is to understand how ecological spaces can be co-designed, managed, and engaged in ways that improve the lives of both human and non-human species. These micro-spaces are opportunities and the locus for focusing the imagination of the artists, designers, and scientists who joined us on our CaLL walk.

On October 25th 2014 we gathered a group of urban ecology enthusiasts on the corner of Broadway and 39th Street in New York City and walked up to and along West 40th street toward the Port Authority Bus Terminal, observing the sheer number and possibility of the micro_urban.

We motivated our group in two ways. First, we focused on three urban forms: the sandwich, the billboard corner and the setback. Second, we observed social-ecological interactions and spaces to imagine a networked ecology of the micro_urban.

Credit: Victoria Marshall. As seen here from the roof of the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York, there several overlooked, underused spaces that could be green roofs, connected to green walls, connected to the belly of the block and the street, and from there other micro-passageways, corridors, walls, roofs, and other micro_spaces.
As seen here from the roof of the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York, there several overlooked, underused spaces that could be green roofs, connected to green walls, connected to the belly of the block and the street, and from there other micro-passageways, corridors, walls, roofs, and other micro_spaces. Photo: Victoria Marshall

In our walk, we first, observe these spaces, and second imagined the opportunities that exist over the space of just a couple blocks.

Ecologically, the fundamental idea is that soil, microbes, plants, invertebrates, birds, and other urban adapted organisms can exist in spaces we don’t traditional consider as ecological habitat. What if building owners, their tenants, the business improvement district and other urban actors intentionally managed these spaces to foster more diverse and healthy ecosystems? How might active engagement with the micro_urban help solve the connectivity puzzle in our fragmented urban ecologies?

Drawing

Eventually we took our walk to the roof of the Port Authority, seven stories up, where we conducted a drawing exercise to allow each person to reimagine how these spaces could be used to change the Garment District. Everyone was given simple tools and a method of tracing (acetate on clear plexiglass and markers, developed by Jose DeJesus). We asked participants to use their imagination to draw how these three kinds of spaces, the sandwich, the billboard corner and the setback, might become more biodiverse. In simple terms, we asked them to look out, and look up, and to draw soil as a starting point for urban ecological change.

Credit: Victoria Marshall and CaLL. Drawing soil
Credit: Victoria Marshall and CaLL. Drawing soil

Our own goal in this project was very simple: to convey an understanding of the unique urban form of the area, to explore the potential of unused surfaces to become biodiverse.

We were also interested in the value and sociability of those spaces as ‘borrowed and collective views’ rather than gardens directly inhabited by humans. This more complex level—inclusive of insect diversity, microbe diversity, pollinator diversity—engages how these diversities might also begin to create new social spaces in a neighborhood undergoing rapid and dynamic change. It is at this point that were able to introduce the idea of people as part of green infrastructure—as a support system for biodiversity.

Our group was already highly engaged in thinking about important ecological problems in micro_urban spaces. For example: Could mirrors be employed to move sunlight into otherwise dark spaces? How might vegetation be encourage on vertical surfaces through creative use of novel growing substrates? Why is there moss here? How can water move differently on those surfaces? Who might build this? How might they work together? And so on.

Credit: CaLL Walk drawings.
Credit: CaLL Walk drawings.

Everyone chose a different scene to draw—some went to the far end of the roof, some drew the roof, and many drew the area we had just walked. Then we asked people to share what they had drawn. As members of the Walk presented their ideas at the end of the hour we were struck by how many different ideas there were, the sheer diversity and creativity, and overall how much is truly possible once you start seeing social-ecological opportunity in the micro_urban.

Credit: CaLL Finished drawings. Ideas included nurse logs, beekeeping, growing food for restaurants, ‘weeds’ to feed birds, kite flying contests, and extensive mini-ledge gardens.
Credit: CaLL Finished drawings. Ideas included nurse logs, beekeeping, growing food for restaurants, ‘weeds’ to feed birds, kite flying contests, and extensive mini-ledge gardens.

The metacity and the micro_urban

Often roof gardens are designed in a very high-tech way with many pleasurable amenities for people that increase the value of a property, such as chairs, colorful flowering plants and grasses, kitchen gardens, dining areas, and even swimming pools. We offered our CaLL walkers a more simple approach. What if it is OK that people can’t go on the roof? What if only soil was added, after which plants, insects, birds and other species colonized these spaces naturally. They may already be there—seeds move with the wind, and with birds that are flying around searching for places to perch.

McGrath and Pickett (2013) describe a nested mosaic framework as a metacity approach to modeling cities. They engage the term meta not as bigness but as a spatially extensive ‘system of systems’. Through the walk, the drawing exercise, the discussion, and our reflection on this experience we found that a soil-based imagination to this high density neighborhood afforded a metacity spatial understanding for action that could increase biodiversity, create a shared sociability for deeper engagement with natural processes in our cities, and greater well being through neighborly interaction above, and in addition to, crowded and contested sidewalks.

Our earthy micro_urban approach to the garment district was informed by the urban heterogeneity of this Manhattan neighborhood. It was also informed by walking as a base for engaging people as part of green infrastructure. There are other types of movement. For example, consider the difference in the sociability of the stroll, promenade, ramble, commute, parade, ceremony, game, festival, or protest. Each is a type of social space where action in relation to and with ecological spaces might be engaged with intention.

What micro_urban approach does your neighborhood afford?

Timon McPhearson and Victoria Marshall
New York and Newark

On The Nature of Cities

***

Selected References:

McPhearson, Timon, Peleg Kremer, and Zoé Hamstead. 2013. “Mapping Ecosystem Services in New York City: Applying a Social-Ecological Approach in Urban Vacant Land.” Ecosystem Services (2013): 11-26.

On Micro_urban:

Victoria Marshall, “Designing Patchy Microclimates,” in Scapes 8: Triggers: Urban Design at the Small Scale, eds. Joanna Merwood Salisbury and Brian McGrath (CreateSpace: New York, 2013).

Victoria Marshall, “Street Life,” in Art in Odd Places: Ritual, ed. Ed Woodham (Art in Odd Places: New York, 2013).

Victoria Marshall, “Self-Centered Ecosystem Services,” Scapegoat, Issue 01 (2012).

On Metacity:

The Ecology of the Metacity: Shaping the Dynamic, Patchy, Networked, and Adaptive Cities of the Future:  S. T. A. Pickett, B. McGrath, M. L. Cadenasso, in Resilience in ecology and urban design: linking theory and practice for sustainable cities, S. T. A. Pickett, M. L. Cadenasso, B. McGrath, Eds. (Springer, New York, 2013),  pp. 463-489.

Victoria Marshall

About the Writer:
Victoria Marshall

Victoria Marshall's design practice is called Till Design. She is a registered landscape architect and is trained in both landscape architecture and urban design. Marshall is currently a President’s Graduate Fellow at the National University of Singapore where she is pursuing a PhD in the Department of Geography.

 

 

Mobilising Our Union for Ecological Urbanism

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Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

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Clearly, business as usual is no longer an option and, if we are honest with ourselves, it never really was. In a world of finite resources, the doctrine of perpetual economic growth has long been chafing against the laws of physics.
Things fall apart

Standing at a crossroads, looking into the eye of a perfect storm, these are anxious days for humanity. The full social, humanitarian and economic fall-out of the COVID-19 pandemic may have barely come to pass but it already makes the 2008-09 global financial crisis look like child’s play. Predictably, it is the poor, informal, and marginalized communities who have been most adversely affected.

In the midst of this crisis, many cities we had come to know as centres of power and influence, as beacons of civilisation or simply as “smart” have revealed themselves to be awkwardly vulnerable, inequitable, impuissant, and in some cases, wholly unfit for the future. Urban people who might once have taken food, water and energy for granted are now acutely aware of just how easily supply chains can be disrupted.

COVID-19 has rattled our cities and changed the way we view them. We can only hope it will change the way we design, build, and manage them. As public budgets are reassigned and stimulus packages deployed, it is imperative that we seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to expedite the “Great Green Transition” and build a better world for all.

At a junction in Paris. Photo: Russell Galt

Against the grain

We can no longer ignore nature’s warning shots. The Ebola virus is named after a river in the Congo Basin while the namesake of the Zika virus is a forest in Uganda. COVID-19 is not the first zoonotic disease thought to have been triggered by ecological disturbance and wildlife exploitation. Nor will it be the last—at least not until we stop grating against the wilderness.

Three-quarters of the planet’s land surface has been “significantly altered” and one million species of plants and animals are thought to be at risk of extinction (IPBES, 2019). Populations of wildlife have declined by 68% since 1970 (WWF Living Planet Report, 2020) and, of the 20 international biodiversity targets agreed by governments a decade ago, none was met in full (GBO5, 2020).

Despite a “lockdown lull” over the past year, global greenhouse gas emissions have resumed their dizzying ascent (UN, 2020). Capping a decade of scorching temperatures, 2020 was the hottest year on record. Ice sheets are thinning, glaciers are retreating, and permafrost is thawing. From the lithosphere into the atmosphere, methane is fizzing skyward. Bonfires larger than countries are laying sacred forests to ruin. Oceans loaded with toxins and junk, are acidifying and advancing inland. Extreme weather events are seeming less and less extraordinary (NASA, 2020). The evidence is crystal clear: our planet is in trouble and therefore, we are too.

The Sumatran orangutan has been pushed to the edge of extinction. Photo: Russell Galt

Tempering lions

We have long known that cities are central to the success of the Sustainable Development Goals. Despite occupying a tiny fraction (2-3%) of the Earth’s land surface, they account for the lion’s share (75%) of natural resource consumption and contribute disproportionately (75%) to global greenhouse gas emissions. Their impacts are felt almost everywhere, even in the remotest remnants of wilderness. For the surging majority of us, they are also home.

At IUCN, we recognise that the survival of the natural world is contingent upon the sustainability of the unnatural world: our cities. This is why we are mobilising our Union to play a more proactive role in shaping our collective urban future.

We want to help cities become nature-positive. How? By protecting critical ecosystems from conversion to human settlements; by promoting compact integrated development and curbing urban sprawl; by adopting nature-inclusive design principles to accommodate urban wildlife; by deploying nature-based solutions to address pressing urban challenges; by enhancing the efficiency of urban utilities to minimise waste and pollution; by greening supply chains to shrink ecological footprints; and by fostering pro-environmental attitudes grounded in ecological literacy.

In times of crisis, people find solace and fortitude in nature. Urban parks are essential public infrastructure. Photo: Russell Galt

Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration…

With the support of Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, and at the behest of our 1,400 Members—States and government agencies, NGOs large and small, Indigenous Peoples’ organisations, scientific and academic institutions, and business associations—we have formed the IUCN Urban Alliance. As a diverse coalition of IUCN constituents chaired by IUCN Global Councillor Jonny Hughes, we are united behind the vision of “a world in which nature thrives in urban areas, delivering solutions to multiple social, economic and environmental challenges.” Pursuant to this vision, we are creating a platform for debate and knowledge exchange; catalysing new projects and partnerships; and developing new tools and guidelines. We are building a global movement for greener cities.

In cooperation with the World Bank, we recently launched the PANORAMA Thematic Community on Sustainable Urban Development and Resilience comprising hundreds of inspiring, impactful, and scalable solutions drawn from across the conservation and development sector. These include, for instance, the establishment of “water funds” to restore catchments around drought-stricken cities; the use of “land value capture” to finance sustainable transport infrastructure; the retrofitting schools to ensure earthquake-readiness; the creation of pollinator habitats on high-rise rooftops; and downtown “bioblitzes” involving scores of citizen scientists. We encourage practitioners to use the platform to share and reflect on their work, source ideas and insights, and connect with and learn from each other.

In Cape Town, South Africa, non-profit organisation Urban Harvest works with vulnerable communities to build skills, find employment and grow healthy food. Their story is one of many to be found on the PANORAMA Solutions portal. Photo: Ben Getz

We are also developing a new knowledge product, the IUCN Urban Nature Index, to help cities measure and track their ecological performance across three realms: urban, bioregional and global (i.e., tele-coupled). The Index is intended to enhance environmental transparency and accountability, facilitate goal setting and catalyse local action. Under the guidance of our esteemed IUCN Technical Expert Group and with the dedicated support of Urban Biodiversity Hub, we will soon commence beta-testing the Urban Nature Index in five pilot cities. We shall launch the product at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille, September 2021, where we will run the Urban Planet Pavilion together with a dozen partners.

Finally, we are gathering support for a Manifesto for Ecological Urbanism, articulating imperatives and pathways for bringing the built environment into balance with nature, and issuing a rallying call for concerted global action. On the road to Marseille, we will invite our Members and partners to help shape and promulgate it. In the spirit of our partnership with Edinburgh College of Art—through which postgraduate students have already produce a series of stunning experimental short films exploring the theme of ecological urbanism—we will continue collaborating with artists, activists and culture-makers to give creative expression and emotional resonance to the Manifesto.

Elegance and injustice

Our efforts are intended not only to conserve nature but to help communities prosper. In recent years, IUCN has worked to popularise the concept of nature-based solutions defined as “actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits.” Last year, we launched the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions—the result of an extensive consultative process involving 800 experts. It offers clarity, credibility and quality assurance to the concept.

Examples from around the world attest that nature-based solutions can cost-effectively and elegantly enhance the sustainability, resilience and liveability of cities. Trees mop up pollutants, dampen noise, and cool the air; wetlands and raingardens reduce flood risk; mangroves and marshes buffer storms; greenspaces facilitate exercise, spiritual nourishment and community interaction; and greenways support active travel.

Yet in most cities, the provision of nature is inadequate or distributed unevenly, along lines of affluence. Stark inequities persist. Far too many people are denied nature’s benefits. We can and we must do better.

Still from the experimental short film, ‘Confluence’, directed and produced by Scott Hunter and Ana Parrodi in the framework of a partnership between the University of Edinburgh and IUCN Urban Alliance.

Nature never rusts

2020 dispelled many myths of separation: between humans and nature; between our actions and their consequences; between the haves and have-nots; between the living and the yet-to-be-born. Spanning oceans of time and mountains of space, the great web of life binds us together in “a single garment of destiny”.

Clearly, business as usual is no longer an option and, if we are honest with ourselves, it never really was. In a world of finite resources, the doctrine of perpetual economic growth has long been chafing against the laws of physics.

As banks wave their magic wands, miraculously conjuring vast sums of money, and as governments build up debts so heavy that they must be shouldered by our grandchildren, we should pay close attention. Decisions on economic stimulus measures are quietly determining the fate of our planet and by extension, the health, wellbeing and security of generations to come.

One can already hear the engines of growth, extractivism and denialism, revving up for a return to normalcy. Make no mistake: they are not roadworthy. A green recovery must have nature and people at its heart. Its guiding lodestar should be shared prosperity within the limits of Earth’s living systems. Investing in the restoration of our planet’s health—in fortifying the great web of life—is surely the kindest and wisest investment in our common future.

The ecological restoration of the Water of Leith has brought beauty and joy to city of Edinburgh. Residents include kingfishers, woodpeckers, otters, and trout. Photo: Russell Galt

Certainly, these are anxious days, but the winds of change bring hope and opportunity. I firmly believe that this public health crisis can mark a positive turning point in our history: a chance to reset our relationship with nature; to reign-in our bloated economies to within planetary boundaries; to reimagine our cities as regenerative systems; to build a truly ecological civilisation. A genuinely green recovery means nothing less than transformative change; the promise of transitioning from a world of artificial scarcity to one of natural abundance. From that lush and flourishing future, we all stand to gain.

Russell Galt
Edinburgh

On The Nature of Cities

 

 

Money for urban biodiversity is scarce. What is the single most important idea, program or action any city should undertake to promote biodiversity?

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Every month we feature a Global Roundtable in which a group of people respond to a specific question in The Nature of Cities.
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Hover over a name to see an excerpt of their response…click on the name to see their full response.
Pippin Anderson, Cape Town
Two areas where I would spend my limited budget: on research towards really understanding the workings of biodiversity in cities, and then in exposing more urban citizens, in particular the young, to urban biodiversity.
Peter Werner, Darmstadt
Bring citizens more in touch with urban nature and urban biodiversity using components and methods — including values, incentives, demonstrations, etc. — that match urban lifestyle.
Andre Mader, Montreal
Cities are new competitors for the finite pots of global biodiversity funding.
Bram Gunther, New York
In New York City, the single most important biodiversity program recently has been the creation of the Natural Areas Conservancy (NAC), a non-profit that works in partnership with the New York City Parks Department.
Ana Faggi, Buenos Aires
Recently Buenos Aires has begun a significant transformation in order to revert the lack of green spaces and the reduction of its natural capital.
David Maddox ,New York
The single most important need isn’t in science, but in communication.
John Kostyack, Washington
Sustainability no longer quite captures what is most needed in today’s urban environments.

Pippin Anderson

We know biodiversity in cities is a good thing. For example we have research that shows a diversity of plants provides a similar variety of livelihood options to the urban poor, some sequester carbon with a close-to-source efficiency, and others retain soil. Multiple options allow for more choice for gardens for functional and aesthetic ends. Biodiversity provides a diversity of services. We also know that people in cities govern the globe and are responsible for a sustainable future, one hinged on the preservation of global biodiversity, so it is critical that people in cities value biodiversity. Here is what we don’t know so well. We don’t know the exact workings of many of the functions or services provided by biodiversity in cities. We know some, but in truth we are just scratching the surface. We also don’t know how to really give biodiversity traction with the people who live in cities, especially in the face of significant development pressures. So, these are the two areas where I would spend my limited budget: on research towards really understanding the workings of biodiversity in cities, and then in exposing more urban citizens, in particular the young, to urban biodiversity. If the budget was really limited I would go for the second as my single action. We are sentimental creatures and hold dear what we were exposed to as children. If all we achieve on our limited budget is a growing urban population coveting biodiversity the money for the rest will follow.

Peter Werner

My message is to bring citizens more in touch with urban nature and urban biodiversity using components and methods — including values, incentives, demonstrations, etc. — that match urban lifestyle. And, urban nature provides a lot of opportunities for such components. If you present nature in cities in a way that people only links it with a rural lifestyle, with sanctity, with closed borders, and so on, then you have no chance in urban areas because urban life is the opposite of that. Here is a list of words with which the citizens of a city can be connected with urban nature and urban biodiversity: perception, awareness, appreciation, literacy, curiosity, enjoyment, excitement, surprise, astonishment, emotion, spontaneity, freedom, encouragement, integration, inclusion, involvement, participation…Wording is critical in the dissemination of messages. Notice the words I am not using in this context After the wording, activities have to follow, and here too, activities are needed which represent the sense of urban life. The new media do that best. The challenge is to include urban nature in social networks, video portals, and games (serious games) and to produce urban events and performances about urban nature, not at the edge but in the center of a city, where more people can experience them. If urbanites discover and include urban nature as part of their life, then you save public money, because biodiversity in the urban matrix will be ensured and the governance can concentrate its activities on special nature conservation projects in which rare and endangered species will be protected.

Andre Mader

About the Writer:
Andre Mader

Andre is a conservation biologist specializing in subnational implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, seconded to the Secretariat for a third year by ICLEI. FULL BIO

Andre Mader

Cities are new competitors for the finite pots of global biodiversity funding. Funding is still undoubtedly lacking elsewhere, but biodiversity in cities deserves special attention due to its extraordinary “investment” potential to influence every aspect of biodiversity conservation at every scale by affecting, en masse, people’s (voters’) attitudes. I therefore believe that the biggest bang for biodiversity buck is through the opportunity, in cities, to reach multitudes of people with a subtle but concentrated conservation message. Nothing can do this in a more reliable way than the good old zoo (and/or, in many cases, the aquarium or botanical garden). These institutions can be accessed by unprecedented numbers of people, who have flocked to them for centuries knowing that they can expect an entertainment-intensive experience. There are also “bad old zoos”, and it is critical that entertainment is subtly embellished with messages so that the experience is also an education-intensive one. Of course zoos offer the additional function of ex-situ conservation and possible reintroduction. Not insignificantly, due to their proven popularity, they are also among the few conservation options that can be net money makers and it is therefore not hard to get the private sector involved. Zoos are therefore worth the considerable cost of their establishment and even more worthwhile investing in when all that’s required is to enhance existing ones with improved interpretative facilities and improved accessibility by all sectors of the citizenry. Local governments, which commonly own or manage these institutions, would do well to consider these options, and many already do to great effect.

Bram Gunther

About the Writer:
Bram Gunther

Bram Gunther, former Chief of Forestry, Horticulture, and Natural Resources for NYC Parks, is Co-founder of the Natural Areas Conservancy and sits on their board. A Fellow at The Nature of Cities, and a business partner at Plan it Wild, he just finished a novel about life in the age of climate change in NYC 2050.

Bram Gunther

In New York City, the single most important biodiversity program recently has been the creation of the Natural Areas Conservancy (NAC), a non-profit that works in partnership with the New York City Parks Department (Parks). Parks’ Natural Resource Group is the oldest urban conservation unit in the nation, started in 1984. The management of natural areas has become critical as the City faces climate change and seeks to increase public health. The City, however, will always have limits on conservation funding. In its organization and business model, the NAC capitalizes on present-day concepts of collaborative governance and the flexibility and effectiveness of public-private partnerships to enhance and expand current conservation work. The fundamental principle of the NAC is to increase the quality of the information flow between land management and design, researchers, and decision-makers. To this effect, the NAC is funding the first ever citywide ecological and social site assessments of Parks’ natural areas, data that will be used to guide and prioritize our conservation endeavors. NAC is expanding programmatic work by funding a hydrological engineer, additional foresters, and the expansion of our Native Plant Center to grow marshland and beach plants which will be used to make our coastlines more resilient. The NAC represents a significant change in urban natural resource management, from a focus on isolated plots to a single unified ecosystem and administrative whole. The NAC is emblematic of how urban ecological management will be done in the future: public/private partnerships.

Ana Faggi

About the Writer:
Ana Faggi

Ana Faggi graduated in agricultural engineering, and has a Ph.D. in Forest Science, she is currently Dean of the Engineer Faculty (Flores University, Argentina). Her main research interests are in Urban Ecology and Ecological Restoration.

Ana Faggi

Recently Buenos Aires has begun a significant transformation in order to revert the lack of green spaces and the reduction of its natural capital. The City Council worked a territorial model towards 2060 for a healthy and livable urban fabric with strategies to strengthen and recover the relation between Nature and the City. These includes the creation of new parks, squares and green corridors and the improvement of existing green areas including the rehabilitation of a 370 hectares big urban reserve located down town. In scarcity times of remnant areas with potential to become parks, as well as money that can be applied to the creation of new spaces, the local administration should make possible that vacant private lots could be at least temporarily used as new green community spaces. These could be designed, built and managed by NGOs, schools, universities, groups of pensioners, etc., devoted to urban agriculture or environmental education until the owner decides the lot construction. When this happens the builder should mitigate at the place the loss of nature with green terraces or walls. Buenos Aires’ strategy is to connect new and existing public green space through a structure of green corridors is adequate, because it regenerates permeable urban surface and increase biodiversity. Nevertheless, the attention should be placed not only on trees, but on shrubs, herbs and vines to preserve the Pampas ecoregion characterized by herbaceous components. This could apply to covered part of the sidewalks in order to increase groundcover today nonexistent in the city.

David Maddox

About the Writer:
David Maddox

David loves urban spaces and nature. He loves creativity and collaboration. He loves theatre and music. In his life and work he has practiced in all of these as, in various moments, a scientist, a climate change researcher, a land steward, an ecological practitioner, composer, a playwright, a musician, an actor, and a theatre director.

David Maddox

I was in a meeting a few months ago and someone put up a picture of a bioswale and said: “What’s this? It’s not a park. It doesn’t function like one!” Well, the bioswale is functioning exactly as designed: to collect stormwater. It does other things too, such as be a pretty patch of green and support biodiversity. But my colleague, who is a design professional, wasn’t aware of this. Many of us agree that nature in cities is good for cities and people. Biodiversity and nature provide formal ecosystem services and less tangible biophilic services. The professionals — mostly — know this. We have made the case less well with urban dwellers more broadly, who are rightly concerned about jobs, safety, transportation, livability, walkability and so on, maybe in that order. Many, even most, think of nature as irrelevant to their everyday lives. Others think of nature as “somewhere else”. To me, the single most important need isn’t in science, but in communication. We need to better make the connection between people and urban nature. Such awareness would trickle sideways to other residents, upwards to policy-makers, and akimbo to design professionals. How do we do it? We need to collaborate more with artists, exhibit designers, and media minds to make real use of demonstration projects, art installations, and pop-up messaging. How about a pop-up demonstration ecosystem in a city square? Paris’ City Hall did one recently. Washington, D.C. storm drains have painted signs that tell you that the site is part of the Chesapeake Bay drainage. How about a sculpture of a fish swimming through a building, as in Portland? How about an explanatory sign on the bioswale? Most fundamentally we need not to just “educate”, but engage, to find ways to reach beyond the groups we usually talk to and expand the dialog to include people who might not see things the same way. To do this we’ll have to find new ways to communicate, and find new collaborators outside our disciplines, and maybe outside our comfort zones.

John Kostyack

About the Writer:
John Kostyack

John Kostyack is VP for Wildlife Conservation at the National Wildlife Federation. His focus is restoring ecosystems to help reduce harmful climate change impacts. FULL BIO

John Kostyack

Resiliency is the Hallmark of Local Leadership, Wildlife conservationists should celebrate leaders, such as those in Curitiba, Brazil, who have achieved conservation results under the banner of sustainability. Champions of sustainability measure their success by the triple bottom line of environmental, economic and social progress- an approach to conservation more likely to produce fair and politically-viable outcomes that one focused solely on biodiversity. That said, sustainability no longer quite captures what is most needed in today’s urban environments. Today, the most important idea for advancing conservation in the city is resilience. Resilience – making people, communities and systems better prepared to withstand catastrophic events- incorporates all of the concepts of sustainability while highlighting the need to confront the looming threat of climate change. In the past decade, we have seen disasters such as Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Katrina send shock waves through U.S. cities. Yet many refuse to acknowledge that these extreme weather events are part of the “new normal” of rapid climate change. This denial of climate change reality puts both people and wildlife at great risk. Adopting resiliency as the new hallmark of local leadership would help reverse this dynamic. Leaders would be expected to know the most effective strategies for coping with intensified heat, drought, floods and storms. They would need to know how to rebuild oyster reefs, wetlands and other natural features to protect communities from harmful climate change impacts while supporting healthy fish and wildlife populations. Greater attention to resiliency and climate-related risks would also lead urbanites to become stronger advocates for forward-thinking climate policy. On their agenda would be two ideas essential to the future of their cities: a tax or similar market-based limit on the carbon pollution driving climate change and, under the principle of “polluter pays for its damage,” a requirement that at least some of these tax revenues be used to help cities cope with inevitable climate-related disasters.

Morphology, Generosity, and the Nature of Cities

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A review of The Battle for Home: The Vision of a Young Architect in Syria. By Marwa Al-Sabouni. 2016. Thames & Hudson, New York. ISBN-10: 0500343179. 208 pages. Buy the book.

I have been reading an extraordinary book by Marwa Al-Sabouni: The Battle for Home: the Vision of a Young Architect in Syria, who posits the critical importance of urbanism for the nature of a city—its feeling, its generosity, its openness to all regardless of difference. She argues that a generous city, that has fountains in the streets, benches to sit on, and cool shade from trees that give joy year-round with their fragrances and fruits, creates a model for residents to follow. In writing about the old Homs, her home, she says, “This generosity was a model for residents to follow; it was the womb in which a shared morality gestated” (pg. 68).

The relationship between urbanism and nature is one of mutuality: they make each other.

In the nature of cities, we often forget the significant role of urbanism: the buildings, the architecture, the morphology of the city. The ways buildings juxtapose, set up social relationships, and create open spaces and paths for circulation orchestrate the nature of a city. How the built part of the environment can be either welcoming or forbidding, for both people and fauna and flora, is largely derived from urbanism. It is also important to realize that urbanism is not the same as urban planning; urbanism encompasses creating the feeling of a city, its atmosphere, its emotional quality and tone. Urban planning is certainly a component of urbanism, but urbanism also includes parks; open spaces; the relationship between the city and the countryside; civic culture and private spaces; and, ultimately, place making.

coverAl-Sabouni’s argument for paying attention to the relationship between city morphology, urbanism, and well-being is one that has been put forward before, but in thinking of nature in the nature of cities, we have not given this other relationship enough attention. It points directly to the relationship between the hard mineral surfaces humans construct, their form and layout, and the position and location of urban elements like parks or trees, or gardens and court yards: destinations, interwoven in daily pathways, privatized in yards, and so forth. Her argument for a generous city also resonates through housing: its accessibility, affordability, grace, and disposition on the landscape that can facilitate or encourage natural elements as well as amity among residents—in fact, those elements may be essential to the nurturing of civility and cordiality. The types of public spaces, their arrangements and relationship to buildings, are important, too, in making an open and inviting city. As Al-Sabouni writes of the old Homs where she grew up, “[T]he buildings, streets, and trees were not just the components of the urban environment; they were the very soul of the community, creating the faces we saw, the shops we bought from and the shape sound and feel of every footstep we took. In sum, such things shape our shared experience of belonging and the collective conscience of the city. . . . [to] make our coexistence into one existence” pg. 68 (italics in the original).

She writes about the double ravaging impact of state imposed modernist architecture, with its zoned districts, income, ethnic segregation, and high rises, and the devastation wrought on the old Homs, from the war. The old Homs was formed of Muslim and Christian dwellers, a small city behind a wall, with a history of harmonious coexistence imprinted on every stone and in every corner. It was a city where Muslims and Christians lived undivided and shared everything, from common house walls to shops, alleys, and even a church/mosque. People lived, worked, and worshipped together.

I was struck by this discussion and how relevant the concepts of urban form and urbanism are to the nature of cities. What makes a generous city? How segregated are we from one another by race and ethnicity, from work, from play, from parks, and from people who are in a different class? How is this also reflected in access to open spaces; to the benches, fountains, and fragrant trees that elicit joy and a desire to be out, outside of our personal space? In the U.S., there seems to be greater and greater emphasis on the individual, on the self, in uneasy tension with the equal rise of shared spaces, shared rides, co-working spaces. These tensions are reflected in the built environment, and in access to what makes cities livable—our open spaces, squares, trees, walkability—and our attitudes toward the homeless, the low income, and people who are not like ourselves. Generosity toward others needs to be intertwined with how we integrate natural elements in cities, how it can echo the ecosystem in which the city finds itself, in an increase of a sense of belonging.

A public garden between apartment buildings in New York City. Photo: David Maddox
A public garden between apartment buildings in New York City. Photo: David Maddox

Urban open spaces, parks, yards, courtyards, and planting strips are intimately married to the built environment, shaped by that built environment, enhancing it, or introducing danger. It is the disposition of the built spaces that creates opportunities for sociability, vegetation, and water elements, organizing open spaces to function as oases of vegetation and fauna, beautification, and tolerance. Of course, an ancient city like Homs was the cumulative outcome of incremental decision-making, of traditional building materials, human and animal labor that enforced a certain modesty. As Al-Sabouni writes about the buildings: “Their coarse textured facades, moderate heights, and low wide doors welcomed every visitor humbly into their wide and simple interiors, and for that reason they were loved, becoming—in their own way—instruments of reconciliation between communities” (pg. 36). Such cities were built in those ways in good part out of necessity—but, as she reveals, Homs was quite different than Damascus, and thus there was intentionality in its construction.

Today, we have immensely powerful fossil fuels to build our cities, from the extraction of materials, to their processing, to manufacturing and distribution. Italian, Chinese, and Brazilian marbles travel the world to satisfy customer demand; timber is harvested from Russia, Scandinavia, Canada, and the tropics, then traded and processed for construction, creating various degrees of devastation in the process. Our cities’ construction materials, apart from concrete, can come from far-flung places, subsidized by cheap fossil fuel energy. We use these materials without regard for consequences in their places of origin or global greenhouse gas impacts, and with little attention to their relationship to the places in which they are utilized or to place making. While the ancient cities of the Middle East are, in some senses, vestiges of the past and perhaps not good models for the relatively newly developed West or for developing nations, many are still vibrantly inhabited, valiantly resisting the temptations of a hegemonic modernism, and in full throttle of contestation of space with the increased polarization that has occurred, perhaps most pointedly in Jerusalem.

Still, there are lessons to be learned about an urbanism that results from constraint—constraints of space, labor, wealth, materials, and energy. In moving toward a post-carbon world, these cities show the beauty and joy that can emerge from a generous urbanism. Importantly, a post-carbon future may also enable the renewal of craft skills, a trend that is already incipient in the maker and shared space movements. Integrating these movements into a new urbanism of place that emphasizes common open spaces and access to the nature of a particular place is an aspirational goal. This new urbanism can be built on an understanding that there is an urgent and immediate necessity to shift to a post-carbon, new normal and that this move necessarily entails a different urbanism, a generous urbanism of inclusion and modesty.

Al-Sabouni comments about the social importance of a way of production that creates handmade objects. She notes that this mode of production far exceeds its economic benefit and that its true value is greater for the producer than the consumer. She argues that craft production is essential for any flourishing society, as it broadens our sense of the universe as an arena for inspiration and creation. It educates us to strive for commitment and allows us to know what it is to contribute. This can and should include horticulture, the making and maintenance of gardens, parks, common small spaces, and food production. Artisanship has been lost in the race to the bottom of price and consumption made possible by cheap fossil fuel energy. The power of accomplishment of craft, of making, provides a sense of identity and, as Al-Sabouni argues, is a key measure of acceptance among disparate social groups and communities. It engenders respect. But how do we create those spaces where not only craft production can occur, but cities are built to create intimacy we experience with one another? Cities where we live next to the “other”, where we live with the artisans that, in a post-carbon world, are fashioning what we need from recycled materials, local materials, and some more precious ones from faraway places? Cities where the natural environment becomes a primordial partner not only in survival, but in well-being?

Some might argue from an apocalyptic view that these changes in our status quo will happen as our impacts far exceed the planet’s capacity to absorb them. But this will likely be an impoverished and mean adaptation. Rather, we need to drive a new urbanism based on values that encourage generosity, and a shared and civilized identity. Al-Sabouni again has something to offer: “If a place offers architectural details that give pleasure to the eye as well as moral values implicit in their creation, order and configuration, then the inhabitant will experience joy and consider that place to be their accomplishment; their identity.” (pg. 129). And the thing is, this form of participation does not have to be exclusive to class, race, ethnicity, religion, or other distinctions. The quest for a shared home needs to be engaged in democratically and unstintingly, in the knowledge that the future of the planet depends on it.

This work will engender pride that will unite the collective self and an identity based on the sharing of a place to which all belong. A new, post-carbon urbanism based on remaking cities that can more harmoniously depend on the resources available, including recuperating and recycling what has already been expended locally; embracing the nature of the local environment and inviting it in to make beautiful and livable places; and neighborhoods that welcome diversity—of people, activities, thought, and creativity—needs to be an urgent priority. The relationship between urbanism and nature is one of mutuality: they make each other. “The fabric of our cities is reflected in the fabric of our souls” (pg 175). We need to be more intentional and open hearted in this relationship to place and urbanism, realizing our inescapable dependence on the Earth. Al Sabouni has important insights to help us reconsider our current trajectory.

Stephanie Pincetl
Los Angeles

On The Nature of Cities

Mosaic Management: The Missing Ingredient for Biodiversity Innovation in Urban Greenspace Design

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As we homogenise and sterilise our rural landscapes with intensive agriculture, and disconnect our populations from nature in shining metropolises, it is more pressing than ever to maximize the potential for urban areas to support wildlife.
With a new stream of studies adding to evidence revealing disturbing declines in global populations of insects (Hallmann et al. 2018, Lister & Garcia 2018, Sánchez-Bayo and Wyckhuys 2019) and reports of an ecological catastrophe on the scale of a sixth mass extinction, there is an urgent need to do more to conserve these species that underpin our ecosystems. Urban areas have the potential to provide a safe haven for many rare and declining species that have been extirpated from our rural landscapes by intensive agricultural practices (Benton et al. 2003). But only if we manage those safe havens appropriately!

In our last essay at TNOC we discussed the phenomenon of ecological gentrification—“blandscaping” that excludes substantial proportions of biodiversity that urban areas can potentially support. We proposed a mechanism to combat this effect; taking more inspiration from nature and natural systems through a locally contextualised approach to urban greenspace design. We included examples of innovations that are pushing the boundaries in terms of embedding ecological functionality into greenspace design. A year on, the innovation in this field continues to grow. It is inspiring to see more and more examples of an ecological approach to green infrastructure, with nature-based solution projects that put locally important biodiversity at the heart of the design of multifunctional greenspaces.

A recent research project has given us a timely reminder, however, that innovative urban greenspace design also needs innovative management if our nature-based solutions are to sustain diverse populations of biodiversity in urban areas:

This summer we were commissioned to survey one of our old favourite monitoring grounds. Our scope was to investigate how effective the design and management of the site was in supporting invertebrate biodiversity. As part of the original green infrastructure masterplan for the site, planning included preparation of a Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) that identified key species and habitats for the site, and set out targets for their conservation and enhancement. Monitoring progress towards these targets was also a key aim of the BAP. The outcome of this masterplan process was a multifunctional exemplar that unites the social, economic and environmental value of greenspace and marries it with design for wildlife.

We have previously been contracted to survey individual areas on the site, and each time we visit we record rare and interesting species, expanding understanding of the diversity of wildlife that can be supported in semi-formal landscaped urban areas. There can be no question that the design of this greenspace includes an innovative blend of social and ecological functionality, and that the result is an attractive space that meets many of the Biodiversity Action Plan’s objectives. You may have noticed though that up to this point our focus has been on design innovation. In contrast to previous years, this summer we expanded to monitor both ground-level biodiversity hotspots and green roofs. This gave us the opportunity to compare these two types of nature-based solutions on a single site. In so doing, it brought the impact of management of these respective areas into stark focus.

A biosolar roof (green roof and photovoltaic panels combined on a single roof space) in full bloom on the survey site. The photovoltaic panels provide shading and influence moisture gradients adding to the habitat mosaic across the roof. Photo: © Stuart Connop

The ground level areas of the site we surveyed comprised a series of wildflower meadows, some combined with scrub and young woodland areas, others with a more open pasture-inspired design. These meadows were distributed across the site in a variety of situations, for instance bordering amenity grass areas and river corridors, and included different topographies and aspects. This created a mosaic of environmental niches for nature to exploit. The green roof we were also surveying had comparable habitat complexity in many ways. This included a variety of aspects (created by a high barrier dividing a central infrastructure area from the green roof), substrates, and structural diversity generated by different hydrology and shading regimes. Both the ground-level and roof-level habitats embodied some of the principles of ecomimicry that can be so valuable when designing for nature in cities.

The wildflower-rich areas at ground and roof level were the main target for our surveys. Whilst not directly comparable in terms of area and the sampling effort used across habitat patches, the same survey techniques were adopted on the different levels (direct observation/hand-searching, sweep net surveys and pitfall trapping). Repeated sampling methods were adopted, enabling comparison of patterns in each area across the survey period (early to late summer). It was also possible to compare the proportion of rare and scarce species in relation to the total catch size by calculating a Species Quality Index (SQI) for each area. Survey results were positive, with nationally rare and scarce species recorded in all areas surveyed, including 4 of the Park’s 7 Biodiversity Action Plan target invertebrate species. A diversity of more common species from groups such as butterflies, bumblebees, dragonflies and damselflies were also recorded, providing an oasis of nature for local communities to enjoy.

Wildflower-rich ground level area of the survey site providing a variety of food and structural resources for target invertebrate species. Photo: © Stuart Connop

Despite these positive results for both roof and ground level habitats, when patterns of species abundance and the representation of scarce species were interrogated in more detail, it was apparent that not all areas were equal. During the early summer survey, there was a predominance of nationally rare and scare species at roof level compared to ground level habitats. This is perhaps counter-intuitive to what one would expect, due to the relatively greater range of habitats and niches associated with the ground level sites. By the second survey the comparatively greater value of the green roof for rare and scarce species had declined slightly. This decline appeared correlated with the effects of the very hot dry summer in London this year. By the time of this second survey, the green roof was clearly drought-stressed, with only a small proportion of plants managing to survive in moister habitat niches created by the roof’s novel habitat mosaic design. Whilst the ground-level meadows also suffered during the prolonged heatwave, their deeper substrates offered greater resilience to the drought. As such, they continued to flower longer, and thus improved comparatively to the green roof in terms of species abundance and total scarce species recorded.

At the time of the last survey in September however, a real lightbulb moment occurred. When we returned to the site for our final visit, two of the three ground level meadows had been strimmed to within an inch of their lives. Coinciding with this management, our survey results showed that the number of invertebrate species (and proportion of rare species) on these areas had plummeted. This pattern of late cutting, an appropriation of a management technique used in arable situations, is an all too familiar practice in both urban and rural areas in the UK. This approach perhaps stems from a clear conservation message that us ecologists have been promoting over the years. In the face of global declines in pollinators, there has been a strong driver to turn amenity grass areas into wildflower meadows, with an equally strong management message not to cut meadow areas when they are in flower, so that we don’t remove pollen and nectar resources for our valuable bees/pollinators.

A really positive outcome of this has been the creation of networks of pollinator meadows that now criss-cross our urban landscapes. Unfortunately, pressure to “tidy up” these pollinator havens is great, often driven by a desire to make urban greenspace look managed and neat. The consequence of this is that, as soon as the flowering season is coming to an end, the wildflower meadow is assumed to have no further value. The entire vegetation resource is then removed by a wholesale strim in late summer once flowering has diminished.

The same wildflower survey area as in the previous picture strimmed at the time of the last round of surveys. Such management removes resources vital for many species that could otherwise persist in urban areas. Photo: © Stuart Connop

This is happening across our urban landscapes on a grand scale, and with almost choreographed timing. We see examples of it not just at this survey site, but as standard practice across the streets and parks where we live. Even on our university campus (where we have our own Biodiversity Action Plan and have restored nature to provide staff and students opportunities to experience wildlife), the landscape managers follow the same prescription: one day pocket meadows full of architectural stems and attractive seedheads, and the next, mechanised destruction that leaves nothing standing across almost the entire campus.

This blanket, almost generic, approach to urban grassland conservation management has an enormous impact on the ability of many species to persist in these areas. Countless species, including some pollinators, rely on resources provided by these meadows beyond just the pollen and nectar offered by flowers. Seeds provide food, thick grass swards are used for nesting, and seed heads and stems for overwintering. If these resources are removed, the species associated with these resources disappear too. And this was the pattern observed on our survey site. Despite the nature conservation objectives of the Biodiversity Action Plan, blanket removal of grassland areas following flowering prevents a broad diversity of species, including some of the rare and scarce target species, from being able to persist in the habitat that has been created for them.

Standing deadwood was also cut down on the site. Deadwood piles were created as habitat for saproxylic invertebrates (left). These comprise an important and often overlooked habitat. However, the value of standing deadwood should also not be underestimated. Standing deadwood rots slower and is more exposed to the sunny aspects needed by some of the species associated with this habitat. The dead willows on site had evidence of saproxylic use, including Hymenoptera burrows, in the sun exposed areas of the deadwood prior to being cut down (right). Photos: © Stuart Connop

The negative impact from this cutting management was demonstrated by the results of our surveys. We saw dramatic declines in the total number of species recorded on the cut areas, particularly for scarce conservation priority species. The SQI score for each survey area followed a similar pattern. Values for the areas managed using blanket cuts were substantially lower than for the green roof, also lower than the one meadow area that was left uncut. It would be expected that an opposite pattern would be seen with appropriate management, due to the greater habitat diversity on and around the ground-level meadow areas and their greater resilience to the summer drought. This finding highlighted to us the profound impact inappropriate management can have on innovatively designed urban greenspace.

This effect of blanket management on areas designed to be wildlife refuges is one we encounter frequently. Lessons on how these areas could be managed can be taken from some of the more industrial areas of our urban landscapes. As detailed in our previous essay, brownfield (post-industrial) sites can host some of the most rich and diverse populations of wildlife found in our urban areas (Gibson, 1998; Bodsworth et al., 2005). Whilst part of their biodiversity value is due to habitat heterogeneity created by the diversity of substrates, topography and contamination typical to these sites, another key aspect is their management or, more precisely, lack of it.  Rather than regimented, intensive management, biodiversity-rich brownfield sites tend to have sporadic and localised disturbance. This enables wildflower resources, beyond just nectar and pollen, to persist, and therefore support the diverse array of wildlife that depend upon a continuity of resources.

An example of a wildflower-rich brownfield site. Drought stress, contamination and nutrient poor substrates slow successional process retaining open flower-rich habitats over long periods. Sporadic and patchy disturbance enhances this process. Photo: © Stuart Connop

Numerous species can only persist (and by persist we mean to successfully complete their life cycle) if the wildflower resources necessary for their entire life cycle are left intact over appropriate spatial scales. If habitat areas are subjected to blanket cuts, these species disappear. Lack of intensive management means that high quality brownfield sites have become a valuable reservoir for many of these species. Examples include:

  • The Diptera species Acinia corniculata (UK Red Data Book (RDB) 1 – Endangered species) that develops in the dry fruit heads of black knapweed (Centuarea nigra) only if they are left in-situ throughout the winter.
  • One of our survey site’s Biodiversity Action Plan targets, beetle Mordellistena neuwaldeggiana(RDBK), that uses dead stems in tall grassland for over-wintering and larval development.
  • Another Biodiversity Action Plan target beetle at the site, Olibrus flavicornis(RDBK), the larvae of which probably develop in the flower heads of Autumn Hawkbit (Scorzoneroides autumnali) (Harvey 2018).
  • The blue carpenter bee Ceratina cyanea(Red Data Book 3), which nests and overwinters in hollow twigs and stems (McGill 2017).

And it isn’t just invertebrates that suffer from this habitat loss. Many declining bird species such as linnets (Carduelis cannabina) and sparrows (Passer domesticus) are dependent upon the bountiful seed sources provided by uncut wildflowers and grasses during autumn and winter. Both species forage on fallen seed and standing seedheads and will feed on invertebrates overwintering in plant tissues. These important food sources that are crucial to keeping birds alive throughout winter are now generally confined to unmanaged brownfield sites in the urban landscape. Hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) also suffer from this need to tidy (remove standing dead plant material) and simplify (cut everything in one go) our urban greenspaces. During the day and during winter hibernation, hedgehogs sleep in specially built nests. These are often hidden in long, overgrown vegetation and the nests themselves are constructed from dead plant material. Over-management of greenspace resulting in the loss of suitable nesting vegetation is a key threat to declining hedgehog populations in the UK.

The brown-banded carder bee (Bombus humilis), one of the survey site’s target species. A declining species that can persist in urban areas if sufficient habitat is available. The species requires wildflowers for nectar and pollen and thick grass swards for nesting. Photo: © Stuart Connop

Presumably, within the context of our survey, one of the key reasons the green roof performed so well for rare and scarce species (SQI 9.5–equivalent to national significance for nature conservation) was because it wasn’t subjected to this standardised management intervention (with summer drought-stress providing a natural process to suppress dominant species and maintain a diverse sward). As such, conditions on the roof mimic those on biodiversity-rich urban brownfield sites. The less frequently cut meadow area also scored similarly highly. If we want to avoid extirpating these species from our urban areas through ecological gentrification, then we must not only take a mosaic approach to how we design our greenspaces, but also to how we manage them. This means staggering the timing of cuts of wildflower areas to ensure that a continuity of resources is provided, and, most critically, leaving some areas uncut for longer durations.

There are examples of innovation in this approach to management too, whereby sections of meadow are cut at different times and patterns are cut in the sections to create interesting borders for areas left uncut. This has the double advantage of ensuring that the areas look managed (and therefore not abandoned) and are visually interesting. Such a management approach can also have the added advantage of being more cost effective as less cutting is needed annually!

An example of an urban landscaped area where standing wildflowers were left overwinter. Blending areas cut for amenity with those preserved for wildlife ensures that the site looks managed rather than abandoned but retains the important ecological functionality. Photo: © Stuart Connop

As we homogenise and sterilise our rural landscapes with intensive agriculture, and disconnect our populations from nature in shining metropolises, it is more pressing than ever that the potential for urban areas to support wildlife is maximised. We must therefore strive for and share innovation in the design and management of urban greenspaces, so that ecological gentrification becomes a thing of the past and our declining species can flourish in our cities.

Stuart Connop and Caroline Nash
London

On The Nature of Cities

 

References

Benton, T.G., Vickery, J.A. & Wilson, J.D. (2003) Farmland biodiversity: is habitat heterogeneity the key? Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 18:182-188.

Bodsworth, E., Shepherd, P. & Plant, C. (2005) Exotic plant species on brownfield land: their value to invertebrates of nature conservation importance. English Nature Research Report No. 650. Peterborough: English Nature.

Gibson, C.W.D. (1998) Brownfield: red data – the values artificial habitats have for uncommon invertebrates. English Nature Research Report No. 273. Peterborough: English Nature.

Hallmann CA, Sorg M, Jongejans E, Siepel H, Hofland N, Schwan H, et al. (2017) More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas. PLoS ONE 12(10): e0185809

Harvey, P. (2018) Anchor Field 2016 invertebrate survey report. In: Connop, S., Gardiner, T., George, B., Gibson, C., Harvey, P. and Knowles, A. (Eds) (In Press) The Essex Naturalist: Journal of the Essex Field Club, No 35 (New series), ISSN 0071-1489.

Lister, B.C. & Garcia, A (2018) Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115 (44) E10397-E10406.

McGill, J. (2017) Invertebrate survey at the Ripple Nature Reserve, Barking London. Report to Barking Riverside Limited.

WWF (2018) Living Planet Report – 2018: Aiming Higher. Grooten, M. and Almond, R.E.A.(Eds). WWF, Gland, Switzerland.

Caroline Nash

About the Writer:
Caroline Nash

Caroline is a Research Assistant in the Sustainability Research Institute at University of East London, working primarily on biodiversity and urban green infrastructure design

Move Slow and Connect People with Nature: The Economics of Happiness in Jeonju

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A review of the International Conference on the Economics of Happiness, held on September 3-5, 2015 in Jeonju, South Korea.

“We need to re-establish the link between city and land.”

At the opening ceremony of the Economics of Happiness conference, we were happily greeted with this statement from the event’s director, Dr. Helena Norberg-Hodge, who called for everyone present (governments, NGOs, activists, and local citizens) to re-establish the link between city and land, and in turn, as we understand, to use this link as a basis for how we go about our economic and social activities.

economicsofhappiness_1
Dr. Helena Norberg-Hodge gives the opening keynote at the Economics Of Happiness conference in Jeonju, South Korea.

Norberg-Hodge called for all activists to be “big picture” activists, united by a shared vision for social and ecological wellbeing. “How do we get there?” she asked the audience “re-connect to others and re-connect to nature.”

It’s a sentiment that we’ve all seen echoing not only through activist circles, but also through professions from architecture and urban design to politics and law. Bringing individuals from such professions together, the Economics of Happiness is a global initiative, bolstered by the success of the recent film of the same name. Through the film and the parent nonprofit organization Local Futures, which Norberg-Hodge directs, it would seem that a global cultural phenomenon is slowly taking root in cities and communities around the world.

Global though it may be, Economics of Happiness is perhaps more appropriately described as a global collection of local initiatives, all of which are united by a shared vision rooted in things like compassion and connection. The conference was uplifting—as you might expect a conference on the Economics of Happiness would be—and filled with advice and success stories presented by speakers from the USA, UK, Japan, and South Korea.

Of particular interest to The Nature of Cities readers, the conference was supported largely by Jeonju city’s Mayor Seong Su Kim, who wants to use it as a blueprint for building a happy, sustainable city, one that looks at a more “useful” measurement than GDP and per-capita income in order to gauge the wellbeing of its citizens. Speakers chimed in to this effect through multiple viewpoints including law, industry, public service, and—perhaps most pervasively—the subjects were sprouting directly from the social and ecological ground in which they are planted.

“The roots of all our major problems are intertwined” noted Keibo Oiwa, author of Slow is Beautiful, and founder of Japan’s Sloth Club, a movement for slow living amidst one of the most fast paced countries in the world. By the acknowledgment that all of our problems are intertwined, we also come to see that the solutions, too, are intertwined.

As in nature itself, sharing one success broadly and across disciplines and borders, will ultimately lead to more success.

A common theme at the conference, Oiwa asked us to look to nature, saying that “Nature seems to know where to stop its growth and progress… how to take just enough”, further suggesting that the major deficiency in the way we think of and carry out “progress” is that this process is fundamentally disconnected from nature, from reality, and often from other people.

Oiwa’s philosophy also pushes us to see how re-connecting to nature and each other as the basis of our design and building process does not necessarily mean stopping progress.

All we have to do is look at the progress of nature itself for a case study, at how fast nature grows and re-generates and innovates; we can have a sustainable progress that is connected to and informed by nature, giving us amazing progress and beauty side by side.

Speaker Janelle Orsi took the concept of ‘connection’ from a social angle, giving a sharp yet witty critique of the “sharing economy.” A highly contested term in urban areas, the “sharing economy” is most often identified, ironically, with highly lucrative business models like Uber and AirBnB, which claim “sharing” as their philosophy.

Orsi, who is co-founder of the Sustainable Economies Law Center in Oakland, California, gave the conference attendees a different take on the meaning of a sharing economy, calling for us to look more deeply at what sharing means, and whether we can morally justify profiting wildly from others and still call it sharing.

The “real sharing economy”, Orsi says, is seen in projects such as community gardens, worker-owned businesses, car shares, and collaborations. She gave a convincing argument for a new local economy, one based on four levels of increasing scale: relationships (such as borrowing and sharing on a temporary basis), agreements (such as co-owning and space sharing), organizations (such as a food co-op), and universal systems of support (public transit, basic income, universal healthcare).

economicsofhappiness_2
Janelle Orsi explains her ‘legal wedge’ in altering legal structures to encourage local economic activity.

Being a lawyer by trade, Orsi is engaged with “fixing” the restrictive laws we find—perhaps most often at state and local levels—which prohibit a true sharing economy from emerging. “We need different laws and regulations”, said Orsi, suggesting a set of laws for what she calls “extractive” commercial entities, and a different set for “generative” entities like co-operatives and non profit organizations.

The intent is to be more restrictive on profit driven organizations, which tend to “extract” wealth from a local economy, and to be more encouraging for those organizations which generate wealth and wellbeing for the people.

Reflecting strongly the thoughts of the late economist E.F. Schumacher, another constant theme throughout most of the conference was the call to be small. Schumacher’s 1973 book, “Small is Beautiful”, continues to be a highly influential call for economic thinking which puts people and the environment as central concerns.

Smallness encourages better relationships between people and the environment, and better relationships between people and the environment give us a framework to take development actions that have sustainability and wellbeing built into their core. Schumacher’s concepts are statements of absolute simplicity and clarity at once.

Speaking to this point, Neil McInroy, from the U.K. based Centre for Local Economic Strategies, gave a plan to “bring the economy back home” by building out a full, diverse, and resilient local economy that merges “commercial, public, and social” economic sectors.

Perhaps most surprising was Jeonju’s Mayor Kim’s very sincere call to action for building a happy and sustainable city, much of it surrounding ecological and agriculture-related themes.

Mayor Kim, who was a huge champion of bringing the Economics of Happiness event to his city—and who insisted that the organizers make it an annual event going forward—gave a very daring strategy which, he noted, goes against the national agenda in South Korea. This is not easy territory for a South Korean mayor to tread, even in a mid-sized city like Jeonju.

One of Mayor Kim’s main points was ecology, where he highlighted efforts by the city to invest in local biodiversity, reforestation, and cutting river pollution. Of these, the call for biodiversity is one of the most critical, yet is only beginning to take form in public forums.

Mayor Kim might be happy to know, however, that such topics are well discussed here on TNOC:

It’s good to see that biodiversity is now a major target for Mayor Kim and Jeonju City.

In the area of food and agriculture, Kim noted that only 10 percent of food consumed in Jeonju city is from local sources, and he made a call for the city to aim for food sovereignty.

Food sovereignty!

Those are big words, and the Mayor backed them up at least in part, by highlighting the establishment of a city “food charter” which will mandate the use of locally-produced organic foods in schools and city-government organizations. This is only a small gesture compared to what would need to happen for food municipal sovereignty, but the momentum is moving in the right direction.

How will the Mayor go about true food sovereignty? Rather than focusing on urban agriculture, the Mayor primarily pointed to focusing on the broad areas of agricultural land that he is fortunate to have surrounding the city.

Mayor Kim has a year to get to work before the next Economics of Happiness conference, and though none of us reading this are likely strangers to empty promises from political figures, in his corner, the Mayor had a good few hundred citizens in attendance at the conference and related workshops.

economicsofhappiness_3_coverimage
One of the small community-oriented breakout sessions at the conference, which worked to engage more local voices.

Immediately following the conference, there were local workshops, and the Mayor implemented a distributed network of small neighborhood support centers to deal with social economy and urban regeneration, instead of just having a central development office. Small is Beautiful.

Small, local, connected to the environment and to each other: it’s an enviable framework that is taking root both here in Jeonju, and in cities around the world where local governments and citizens are mobilizing to take local actions.

All of that local legwork could add up to some big global changes.

Patrick Lydon
San Jose & Seoul

On The Nature of Cities

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Moving toward Anti-Racism in the Environmental Field

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Through exclusion, the environmental field has taught about environmental issues in a lopsided and limited way. Racist practices, embedded deep within our institutions, have severely limited the extent of our knowledge and knowing about the world.

This article is a statement of gratitude for experiences that have moved me toward antiracist environmental education. The last 20 years of my life have been a story of reckoning and awakening to pervasive racism and its effect on the environmental field. I was never taught the history of enslavement, or the racist legacy embedded in U.S. systems and institutions. I am beginning to understand its impact on environmental education.

Over the decades of my professional life, I have watched mostly white men and women enroll and graduate from the Antioch University Environmental Studies graduate programs. It is no wonder that most environmental organizations are predominately White, as that is what our educational system has cultivated. Through exclusion, the environmental field has taught about environmental issues in a lopsided and limited way. Racist practices, embedded deep within our institutions, have severely limited the extent of our knowledge and knowing about the world.

We must look at how this country was founded on the attempted genocide of Native people and the enslavement of African people. This legacy was institutionalized in all aspects of our society and continues to create racialized impacts born from structural policies, practices, and procedures, often unintentionally. In fact, race is consistently a primary indicator of a person’s success and wellness in society. — https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/RSJI/why-lead-with-race.pdf

I am a White environmental educator whose life radically changed as a result of her BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color) students and colleagues. I hope to inspire others to take the risks, develop the relationships, and meet the necessary challenges to disband racism head-on. Social and environmental justice depend upon it. Climate action and environmental integrity depend on it. It is critical that each of us find the courage to lift the veil and closely investigate our values, our assumptions, and the underlying historical foundations that seem to exclude the BIPOC experience. The impact of racism on environmental education, conservation, and urban planning runs deep. For many of the graduate students, UEE classes are the first learning experience in a mostly BIPOC cohort and the first time learning with a BIPOC professor. The conversations that emerge are unique, essential, and rich with new perspectives.

In a recent NPR podcast, Dr. Ayana Johnson, a Black Woman Climate Scientist, captured the need to enlist, recruit, train, and engage BIPOC environmentalists and scientists:

Here’s the rub: If we want to successfully address climate change, we need people of color. Not just because pursuing diversity is a good thing to do, and not even because diversity leads to better decision-making and more effective strategies but, because black people are significantly more concerned about climate change than white people (57 percent vs. 49 percent), and Latinx people are even more concerned (70 percent). To put that in perspective, it means that more than 23 million black Americans already care deeply about the environment and could make a huge contribution to the massive amount of climate work that needs doing. Even at its most benign, racism is incredibly time-consuming. Black people don’t want to be protesting for our basic rights to live and breathe. We don’t want to constantly justify our existence. Racism, injustice, and police brutality are awful on their own, but are additionally pernicious because of the brainpower and creative hours they steal from us. Consider the discoveries not made, the books not written, the ecosystems not protected, the art not created, the gardens not tended. — Marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/16/878941532/the-inseparable-link-between-climate-change-and-racial-justice

My interest in collecting the stories and curating the narratives of how BIPOC environmental educators navigate and challenge the existing environmental field was sparked 20 years ago. NPR’s ‘Living on Earth’ host, Steve Curwood, invited me to participate in the development of a new radio program. We gathered environmentally based stories from urban youth across the country. I was thrown into multiple urban centers, landing in high schools in order to train teachers and students to record their perceptions of place, to document the environmental state of their neighborhoods, and the ways they wanted to change things. I found myself walking the streets and visiting schools in Camden, NJ, in Crenshaw HS in Los Angeles, in South Boston, two schools in South Chicago, and one on the edge of Harlem in New York City.

Mostly Black and Brown high school students took me into their neighborhoods. We began to document the ways that discrimination, red-lining, inequitable policies, and actions left the environmental quality challenged, their water poisoned, air polluted, and unhealthy food choices. This is where the intersectionality of environmental issues and social justice became crystal clear. Some of the students felt helpless, yet there were a significant number of students in each place finding ways to heal and repair their neighborhoods. They wanted to gain the skills and find opportunities to increase their knowledge and pursue careers in the environmental field.

“Living on Earth” was a watershed experience.

First, I came to know that Urban had to be added to how we think about and prepare environmental educators.

Second, Communities of Color had to be invited into the conversation — we needed to learn how to listen without bias and without a “savior” mentality.

Third, Environment is where we all live…not just Nature, or the pristine preserved land outside of city boundaries.

Our work at this moment in time is to understand how racism has shaped our approaches to educate about the environment. Who have we left out? What could we learn from them? How do we become better at inclusion? The NPR stories from youth showed their deep interest and concern in their home environments. We heard from South Boston students who did research on how their increased rat population was tied to the wealthier communities getting new trash cans financed from city government…to Camden, NJ students who discovered lead in the water of school drinking fountains … to NYC Harbor School students actively rebuilding oyster beds in NY harbor. I knew that these students needed access to higher education and skills to follow their passion, find their voice, and make a change.

A group of people posing for a photo in front of a statue
Cohort 2016. Birmingham on a Civil Rights tour.

As a result, many years later I was given the opportunity to create a graduate program that works at the intersection of social justice and environmental issues. Traditional models had to be rethought and remodeled so that BIPOC colleagues and students felt welcome and important contributors. Recruiting a multicultural diversity of students and faculty was critical. We’ve managed to maintain at least 65% BIPOC student cohorts each year and 75% BIPOC faculty over 8 years. (https://www.antioch.edu/seattle/degrees-programs/education-degrees/masters-in-education-ma-ed/urban-environmental-education/)

I started collecting stories from the BIPOC students after graduation in order to capture their multicultural perspectives and their experiences with environmental work. I’d like to highlight a few of their narratives here to support the richness that BIPOC voices bring to the conversation.  In order to be inclusive and relevant and effective, environmental education has to change in response.

Rasheena Fountain

Rasheena Fountain was in our second UEE cohort. She is a powerful writer and musician and now a Ph.D. student in creative writing at the University of Washington. She moved to Seattle from Chicago where she learned about Nature from her grandmother’s garden. This article was written for Medium in February of 2019 and is entitled, “Working to Decolonize our Environment for Environmental Progress.”

It is the job of those in the environmental movement to join in on this important work of decolonization to break down barriers preventing communities of color from thriving in the environment. My experiences along with other people of color’s experiences highlight what I see as a key to environmental progress — the important work of decolonizing our environment.

As someone who has an environmental graduate degree, I find myself harkening back to a time before the education and before I discovered the othering of my experiences. I long for a time when curiosity, connection, and knowledge were not constrained by the supremacy of dominant westernized environmental views.

Every time I hear someone say that they want to increase the access to the environment or educate communities of color about the environment, it makes me wonder if they truly understand this statement or what this truly entails. I wonder if they understand that access to our natural lands for people of color has never been about choice or due to a lack of education. Our history is rooted in colonization — colonization that meant ripping Indigenous people from their natural lands. Progress is not necessarily about educating these communities; it is about access and repair. White folk that overwhelmingly make up the environmental field need to unlearn the dominant environmental narratives and to acknowledge white supremacy as a continuous barrier for people of color.

Around the world, no land is free from stories of pain and the forcible removal of people from their lands. With pressing issues like climate change, water pollution, and other environmental degradation, there is a growing awareness that diversity within the environmental movement is essential to solving these issues. Yet, oftentimes, steps toward this type of inclusion are done in a way that negates the history of colonization that still shapes communities of color’s relationships with the land, where white supremacy and barriers still exist. Without this historical lens, communities are approached with a savior complex that negates the knowledge and history of these communities. Acting as saviors when approaching communities is not any different than the ideas behind colonization, and it only perpetuates historical tropes. I intend to build upon the work of my ancestors, enslaved and ripped from their land. I will continue to use the access my parents worked hard to give me a generation before to resituate my relationship with the land. The environmental movement needs to join in on this important work of decolonization to break down barriers preventing communities of color from thriving in their environments.

A person standing with a drink, smiling
James King came into the UEE program in 2015 and graduated in 2018. He was actively engaged in outdoor education and an interpreter for the National Park Museum in Atlanta honoring Martin Luther King.

James King

It took me three years to complete a higher education degree. Undergraduate institutions failed me by leaving my history and my Color out of the instruction. I didn’t finish my BA until I went to Antioch U. for my Master’s degree. I thrived in the environmental field by introducing urban youth to environmental issues through outdoor experiences. The Natural Leaders program (Children and Nature Network) elevated my connection with diverse groups of young people who also wanted to be outside and become civic leaders. I was able to bring my Black perspective to the participants in any outdoor event.

My environmental work was mostly based in Atlanta…in the city and beyond. That’s where I found my calling to become an environmental educator…at the base of the famed Stone Mountain, a tribute to the Civil war and White Supremacy. I thought this reminder of our history was an important place to start programs that focused on getting People of Color into Nature. The question that followed me into all of my work was “How do I bring system change to the world that includes a broad scale of perspectives?” I was inspired by John Lewis who told me to always make ‘Good Trouble’. I knew that I would need a higher degree to become an ‘accepted’ leader in this work.

I was recruited by the UEE program in Seattle. The UEE cohort helped me gain the confidence to move into the world as a change-maker and fight for those who deserved to be heard. I’ve learned how to bring everyone to the same table, to listen and be heard, and to be part of the solution. Now, I am officially a qualified environmental educator who is prepared to jump over the hurdles of racism and inequity to work as a community advocate and bring people together for environmental change. The link between social justice and environmental work makes so much sense to me.

I recently accepted the position of Executive Director for the Central District Community Preservation and Development Authority (CDCPDA). I work with a historically Black community. It is Black because of ‘red-lining’ which excluded Black people from owning property in certain parts of Seattle. Their environmental issues are connected to this history. To make change happen one has to Know the history of exclusion and how it influences the present. I will help community members apply for grant money, direct money to the right folks, and help them use their funding well. I do a lot of community organizing by being on the street and listening deeply. One of the most important skills I learned in UEE was how to listen, to step back and be quiet but attentive, and when to express concerns. And, more importantly, I learned how to understand my influence as a Black man in those situations and make space for others.

Niesha Fort

A person in a hat, smiling
Niesha Fort is an educator who transitioned into a community organizer working with immigrant populations of Color and working to make urban communities healthier through environmental integrity.

Learning how to recognize systems of power and decision-making was the most essential learning for me. As a Black woman, I had to better understand the maze of systemic racism in order to unwind it and prepare to succeed in overturning inequitable decisions that impact Communities of Color by the mostly White folks in power. Environmental work is all about the health and well-being of communities for me…clean water, access to healthy food, clean air, and places to sit in Nature…like parks, gardens, or intact tree canopy.

The UEE program provided me with essential information and ways of thinking about the built environment, health, and the intersectionality of housing, transportation, planning, and environment. Even though I’m not doing traditional teaching in the classroom like I used to, I am doing it in a different way. I manage the ‘Connectors’ program with the city of Burien and Tukwila. I am working with different ethnic groups to help them better understand the systems and policies that will influence their communities (environment) and to educate them on how city governments work. Instead of the city using them, I want them to understand that they can work in partnership with city governments to make changes for their community. My analogy is that communities should stop playing checkers…and instead play chess.

This is how a community can make change. It is about building relationships and trust. I also work at Global to Local as their Leadership and Engagement Program Manager. We develop community-led programs to improve health and provide resources for communities. Health equity is the goal, we work with health disparities among women, people of color, those in poverty, immigrants, and refugees. The organization looks at the intersection of the built environment, our ecosystem, tree canopy, and individual health as it relates to chronic illnesses and access to care. We consider how those issues intersect with race, income, transportation, housing.

Cindy Thomashow
Seattle

On The Nature of Cities

Mr. Rogers, Tikkun Olam, and Thinking Like a Mountain

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Even in the aftermath of 9-11, Mr. Rogers maintained his fidelity to the principles that drove him: love your neighbor and love yourself. And, in invoking tikkun olam, he tied those principles to ecological restoration, restoration of the community as described by Aldo Leopold.
I recently watched the much acclaimed two-hour documentary on the life and accomplishments of Fred Rogers, the beloved host of the popular children’s TV show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”. The film reflected on Rogers’ legacy of kindness and the profound and lasting effect his innovative approach to television had on millions of people, myself included (see the trailer here).

Among the many important and moving messages in the film, one stood out in particular to me as relevant to my current work. It came later in the film, during the passages depicting the return of Mr Rogers to television audiences after the tragedies of September 11th, 2001. In the passage, Mr. Rogers says:

“No matter what our particular job, especially in our world today, we all are called to be Tikkun Olam—repairers of creation. Thank you for whatever you do, wherever you are, to bring joy, and light, and hope, and faith, and pardon and love to your neighborhood and to yourself.”

You can see the passage here.

For some reason, when I heard Mr. Rogers say those words, I thought of Aldo Leopold, who some would argue forever changed the way we view our ecological impact on the environment around us. In his essay “Thinking Like a Mountain”, Aldo Leopold wrote:

“We all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness … A measure of success in this is all well enough, and perhaps is a requisite to objective thinking, but too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run. Perhaps this is what is behind Thoreau’s dictum: In wildness is the salvation of the world.”

To think like a mountain means to have a complete appreciation for the profound interconnectedness of the elements in a system. Was Mr. Rogers thinking like a mountain after 9-11? I was struck with the connection of this Leopoldian thinking and the concept of tikkun olam, in the context of something as horrible as 9-11. With these thoughts swirling in my mind, I wanted to better understand what Mr. Rogers was thinking when he invoked that Hebrew concept, and what it might mean to me.

Mr. Rogers and X the Owl who lives in the oak tree at the center of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe

According to MJL, Tikkun Olam (תיקוןעולם, Hebrew for “world repair”) has come to connote social action and the pursuit of social justice. The phrase has origins in classical rabbinic literature and in Lurianic kabbalah, a major strand of Jewish mysticism originating with the work of the 16th-century kabbalist Isaac Luria. Tikkun olam has been reinterpreted since the 1950s to mean that humans are responsible for the perfection and maintenance of the world. Rabbi Lawrence Troster, of GreenFaith: Interfaith Partners for the Earth, believes that originally tikkun olam was a minor rabbinic concept of amending laws for the betterment of the world. It was altered by Lurianic Kabbalah into a mystical doctrine of salvation, the human repair of the breach in the universe left over by the process of Creation itself. Thus, according to Troster, it became an “eschatological practice actualized in meditation and prayer”.

In his excellent essay Tikkun Olam and Environmental Restoration: A Jewish Eco-Theology of Redemption, Troster further argues that the use of tikkun olamin modern Jewish social justice theology creates an eschatology that sees human freewill, not divine action, as the chief means by which the world will be perfected, and then Rabbi Troster asks … “what do Jewish environmentalists imply when they use tikkun olam? What kind of Jewish environmental perfection are we seeking?” These are important questions, because even though we may see the repair or perfection of the world as merely a symbolic and non-literal goal, “the concept of redemption we choose will shape the way we seek to achieve it … while Jewish environmental theology has, in part, dwelt on Creation theology, little has been done regarding what a Jewish environmental theology of redemption would look like”.

This resonates with me as a midwesterner in the United States with a Judeo-Christian upbringing, in that faith-based understandings of nature tended to be of the “hath dominion” variety rather than “resident of a neighborhood called nature”. The concept of redemption we choose will shape the way we seek to achieve it.

The author at Gazelle Valley(עמק הצבאים) in Jerusalem (2012), an example of redeeming or restoring an urban area to a more ecologically healthy state.

Today the environmental movement is rightly criticized for presenting almost exclusively apocalyptic views of possible future environmental disasters, and is accused of failing to present positive visions of a sustainable world. Arguably, an exception could be be found in the work of the Civic Ecology Lab at Cornell University.  Positive dependencies upon nature are rarely identified, and negative interactions are recycled and reified by news cycles and the internet. Yet, in Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture environmental historian Steven Pyne wrote:

“The real future of environmentalism is in rehabilitation and restoration. Environmentalists have told the story of the Garden of Eden and the fall from grace over and over again. But we haven’t yet told the story of redemption. Now we need to tell that story”.

Which brings me to one of the pillars supporting my own work. Aldo Leopold’s “Land Ethic” requires us to enlarge

“…the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, animals, or collectively: the land… In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such”  — Aldo Leopold. A Sand County Almanac.

This land ethic, Troster notes, might contribute to a refinement or redefinition of tikkun olamas ecological restoration. Ecological restoration, as defined by Eric Higgs, is “the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed” (Higgs, Eric. Nature by Design: People, Natural Process, and Ecological Restoration, p. 110). Thus, ecological restoration must be a process, not simply an end product. It relies upon what Higgs calls a “genuine conversation” between restorationists and natural processes in order for it to function. This conversation ensures that the interests of both people and ecosystems are both deeply understood and appreciated; a social-ecological systems approach. This kind of conversation occurs when those people engaged in restoration take the time to fully understand the place as it is and “listen” to the ecosystem. As Higgs points out in the same book, “The loud, garrulous humans will always dominate unless specific attention is given to the soft-spoken ecosystem…”.

Thanks to Mr. Rogers and Rabbi Troster, I have a new way to think about my work to better understand how to amplify recruitment of citizen conservationists and resulting development and proliferation of a 21st century land ethic. As I have written often, this conservation ethic often emerges in places and time periods characterized by violence, conflict, disaster or war. So, my work often focuses on nature in “hot spots” or “red zones” such as both the time period and place of September 11th. Even in the aftermath of 9-11, Mr. Rogers maintained his fidelity to the principles that drove him: love your neighbor and love yourself. And, in invoking tikkun olam, he tied those principles to ecological restoration, restoration of the community as described by AldoLeopold. Holding Leopold’s notion of community in mind, how inspiring are the words of Mr. Rogers after September 11th:

“No matter what our particular job, especially in our world today, we all are called to be Tikkun Olam—repairers of creation. Thank you for whatever you do, wherever you are, to bring joy, and light, and hope, and faith, and pardon and love to your neighborhood (community, in the Leopoldian sense) and to yourself.”

Keith G. Tidball
Ithaca

On The Nature of Cities

Mumbai’s Obsession With Hardscape Infrastructure Will Sink Her

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Alarming construction and concretisation of land areas coupled with short-sighted development agendas and paucity of soft measures is leading Mumbai towards a state of permanent ecological fracture.

There is no dearth of global reports discussing the impacts of global warming and its direct impact on sea level rise, rising temperatures in cities, and irregular and extreme weather events such as cyclones and rainfall combined with severe water shortage and drought. These events are no longer what can be or should be expected, rather what we are already experiencing the world over through major climate events since the last decade. News of these extreme weather events is now commonplace. The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change has been a steady reference for reports related to this issue ― especially since it comprises scientists from all over the world who evaluate papers to create referenceable reports that can be used by policymakers to create strategies against climate change. It is well known that IPCC’s previous assessment report of 2014 provided the scientific basis for the significant Paris Agreement in December 2015 which was adopted by 200 states including India at COP21.

Flooding in Mumbai, India in 2017 Photo: Paasikivi

India is one of the global hotspots identified in IPCC’s latest Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group II, which warns that a lack of immediate efforts to mitigate or adapt to climate change could lead to dire consequences. Climate events are impacting villages, towns, and cities across the geography of the country. However, owing to the intensity of habitation, energy resources along with complex infrastructure systems and built environment, cities ― especially coastal cities ― face the greatest challenges in order to limit losses to human life as well as nature in the wake of climate change events. Mumbai city is one of the top 10 megacities cities globally at risk of severe impact from climate change. Mumbai’s flood risk makes the city a “high risk” place for climate change vulnerability and its high population density, high poverty rates, and poor sewage and drainage systems heighten the risk posed by climate-related events like flooding. The water level in the Arabian Sea adjoining Mumbai’s western coastline is set to rise, by a conservative estimate, by approximately 3 cm in the next 10 years. This 3 cm rise in water level at the coastline would translate to around 20 meters of land area along the entire coastline to be submerged under water ― adding up to an estimated 28 km2. out of Mumbai’s 480 sq.km total land area. Looking further, McKinsey India had released a report in February 2020 stating that by 2050, Mumbai will see a 25% increase in the intensity of flash floods and a 0.5 metre rise in the sea level which will affect 2-3 million people living within 1 km radius of the coastline. Mumbai is also sinking at the rate of approximately 3 mm per year owing largely to land subsidence caused by groundwater extraction, reclamation of natural wetlands, ecological disturbances, and infrastructure developments. This subsidence, coupled with sea level rise, will ensure further coastal as well as inland flooding.

On the other hand, as discussed by Climate Scientist Roxy Mathew Koll of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), the Arabian Sea’s surface temperature increased by 1.2-1.4°C between 1982 and 2018 — the fastest among tropical oceans. This increased temperature of the water is linked to over 60% of all cyclones emerging from the Arabian Sea. The increased temperatures also means that the air can hold more moisture, leading to increased humidity levels which in turn contributes to a far higher perceived air temperature. Notably, 2010-2020 was the hottest decade in the history of the city. In fact, currently, before the onset of the monsoons, Mumbai has seen temperatures as high as 38°C which feels like 43-44°C due to the high humidity levels of over 75%. Due to such conditions, heavy rainfall events have also intensified in Mumbai over the years, where rainfall expected through the monsoon months of June to September is now received over a handful of days in that period leading to flash floods and inland flooding that our network of stormwater infrastructure systems are unable to cope with. In July 2005, when a meter of rain fell in a single day, flooding cost the city about $1.7 billion in damages. While this data is being updated constantly ― for Mumbai and India ― the fact that threat levels are increasing instead of reducing demonstrates clearly that climate change has become the most serious threat to our existence.

It is interesting to note that approximately 45% of Mumbai’s total area is covered by open spaces and natural assets ― based on a mapping conducted by Mumbai-based architectural practice PK Das & Associates. A quick glance at these numbers would suggest that Mumbai should not be suffering from inland flooding or rising temperatures owing to the large quantum of unbuilt land. However, despite these open areas, flooding and heat island effects are only increasing with each passing year ― which gives us several clues as to the true extent of the problems that have been created.

A map of Mumbai depicting the level of the water and the coastal lines
Parts of Mumbai that are prone to coastal flooding by 2050. Image: Climate Central

The British — through the municipal corporation — had set up most of the public administrative departments of Mumbai, and even though it has now been 75 years since Independence, the legacy of the colonial rule continues within our administrative setups. One of the key aspects of this legacy is that a majority, if not all, of the departments within the municipal corporation are staffed, run, and led by civil and mechanical engineers ― those who approach/mitigate/deal with issues through the particular lens of hardscape engineering tactics and solutions, abetted by enlisted contractors who push for increased use of concrete so they can make more money.

While such approaches might provide short-term benefits, the lack of a comprehensive plan for the future will result in catastrophic failure of all our systems that are currently functioning in the city. Comprehensive planning must entail equal attention to the un-built areas of the city. Hard infrastructure plans have limited lifespans especially since the elements they are designed to respond to are highly volatile and erratic ― as has been discussed earlier with regard to increased intensity of climate change events. At a broad glance, Mumbai has been working on alleviating two primary risks ― namely sea level rise and inland flooding. The measures that are being adopted are limited to (1) tidal flood gates that prevent inflow of water during high tides and heavy rain events; (2) channelising and training water streams with impervious concrete bund walls to prevent water from spreading through neighbouring areas during peak flow times; and (3) increasing/upgrading the stormwater system networks within the flood-prone areas of the city. One does not need further research to determine the limitations of these measures, mainly because their negative effects are already in plain sight to be seen. It is a well-known fact that flood gates that prevent inflow of water from the sea only safeguard limited areas within their radius of topographical influence, but the ingress of water stopped at one location will always find its way inland from another. Not surprisingly, these interventions have caused increased water levels and repeated flooding in lower-income, indigenous communities like the Kolis (fisherfolk) who live by the waterfronts. These urban villages are now witnessing flooding on an annual basis that has not been seen since they were established decades ago. As in most world cities, the underprivileged are the first to face the brunt of inequity in climate responses by civic administrations.

The pros of creating impervious concrete bund walls along Mumbai’s watercourses and their limited short-term advantages of reducing inland flooding are far outnumbered by the cons that lead to further degradation of the environmental health of the city. Mumbai has over 300 km of inland watercourses, popularly referred to as “Nullahs” running through most neighbourhoods of the city. These natural water courses have, over time, either disappeared completely due to ill planning, landfill, and mindless construction or have been narrowed down and trained into concretised canals, thereby severing their natural connection to sub-surface water and soil systems. This condition, in fact, furthers the inland flooding issue since the surface water from the neighbourhoods that earlier seeped through the soil and/or flowed naturally into these water courses cannot follow those routes any longer. This in turn puts further pressure on man-made systems of stormwater drains and gutters that direct all of this water out into the sea.

By doing this, we prevent effective recharging of groundwater systems and drying up of sub-surface soil leading to their reduced capacities of holding water leading to flash floods during heavy rain. In areas where the stormwater systems have been reinforced with larger/ wider networks of gutters, the issue of inland flooding still remains when heavy rainfall coincides with high tides of the sea, where the water from the drains is pushed back into the city. We must give room to our watercourses and rivers ― which would include tactical infrastructure solutions that combine hard interventions along with softer measures such as re-building porosity within our city’s hardscape areas, regeneration of vegetation, and creating retention basins inside the city while making them multi-functional throughout the year. Green infrastructure initiatives that rely on the use of plants, soil, and other natural materials to remove pollutants and allow stormwater to absorb back into the ground will also help prevent flooding and reduce the amount of water that goes into the city’s storm drains. Interestingly, the city spends millions in transporting fresh water from as far as 170 km away to cater to the daily need of approximately 3750 MLD. (Million litres per day). By pumping all of this fresh rainwater out to sea through our stormwater and wastewater systems, we are essentially wasting millions of gallons of fresh water which otherwise could be treated and reused for the city’s water supply.

At a time when climate risk is garnering widespread attention the world over, environmentally insensitive, and illogical projects/policies continue to be floated or formally proposed in Mumbai. To give a brief example, we can discuss two similar and interlinked policies that shed light on the symptomatic issues at the planning level that the city is facing.

The first such policy allows the development/allocation of the mandatory open, recreational space in the development of a layout on top of constructed podiums/decks rather than on mother earth. This policy had in fact been challenged in the Supreme Court of India after which the court had ruled against the policy provision and insisted for these open spaces to be provided on land rather than on top of decks. Unfortunately, subsequently, this order has been overturned by way of the Government of India passing a law that allowed the policy to be reinstated.

The second policy allows the development of underground public parking facilities under public parks and gardens in an attempt to address the growing shortfall of public parking for vehicles throughout the city. Parks are the few remaining open spaces in Mumbai, which has one of the poorest open spaces per capita ratios anywhere in the world (1.1 m2 per capita). Our natural parks and gardens serve a multitude of functions: they act as large sponges for rainwater amidst increasing impervious and concrete developments thereby mitigating further flooding risks, they help reduce the CO2 in the air amidst the rapidly declining air quality and they help mitigate the compounding urban heat island effects thereby forming an oasis for people in dense neighbourhoods. Creating an impervious concrete slab for an underground parking lot would require decades-old rain trees to be cut and thereby compromise the parks’ ability to perform any of the above functions, rendering it useless. Projects and proposals arising from such policies will pave the way for similar ideas and developments across the city which would be disastrous, to say the least. This is an example of the dire consequences of the hardscape-only engineering approach to land management in Mumbai.

Even though the policy for underground parking under parks has been a part of the city’s development control regulations for a few years now, it has recently received a renewed push by elected representatives of government along with civic officials in certain parts of the city. Two such proposals have been mooted in the suburbs of Juhu and Bandra in Mumbai. People living in these neighbourhoods have a rich physical, social, and emotional attachment to parks which are home to some of the oldest rain trees in the area. The announcement of inviting tenders for the construction of parking lots below these parks by the civic administration has faced stiff opposition from concerned citizens in the area and across the city and has given rise to strong citizens movements against these proposals who have since mobilised public meetings and workshops, art and sports events, outreach programs to civic officials and elected representatives combined with online petitions and letters of concern to decision-makers as well as helped run a sustained media campaign regarding this issue in the local newspapers and online platforms.

A screenshot of a website
The online petition on Change.org started by the author opposing the underground parking below parks policy has accumulated close to 8000 signatures.

In fact, with the consensus of the citizens at large, local architects and planners have even gone the length to suggest viable alternatives to addressing the parking issues for consideration. These efforts have proved successful in the case of the park in Juhu where the proposal has been cancelled, and in fact, the alternate suggestion for a parking lot that was proposed has been accepted and is being taken forward. Unfortunately, in the case of the second park located in Bandra, elected representatives and civic officials have remained largely adamant and continue pursuing the parking proposals by way of publishing public notices for inviting tenders for the construction of these facilities. Three members of the local community including an environmental activist, an architect, and the author of this piece have now moved a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against this proposal mooted by the civic administration and its concerned relevant departments in the High Court of Bombay. The case has already been heard twice in the High Court, and the next hearing of the case is now awaited.

In the present scenario, there are countless large-scale infrastructure projects that are being built across the city. To name a few, these are the Coastal road along the western coastline, the trans-harbour sea link connecting Mumbai’s eastern coastline to the mainland, the Navi Mumbai International Airport (which is being built almost entirely on a landfill and needed a major river to be trained and diverted as well as a natural hill to be blasted and levelled), the Metro rail project (one of the world’s largest metro networks, of which a substantial portion is being built overground), and incessant building construction fuelled by current re-development policies. What is most concerning is that these projects are being carried out by various authorities without an overall comprehensive understanding of their ill effects in the short and long term on the ecology and health of the city. In light of such widespread construction, land subsidence is only going to increase at a rapid rate, and with increased concretisation leading to less porosity of our land, flooding is only going to increase.

Plans like which include citywide climate change vulnerability assessment, updated climate projections, and an outline of strategies to address extreme heat, stormwater flooding, and coastal flooding from sea-level rise and storms set a good example of critical decision-making being effected on the ground. Singapore too has led the way in climate action and mitigation. Mumbai’s Climate Action plan revealed late last year is a soft launch for a similar strategy, but needs a far more comprehensive approach (find a detailed article about this issue on TNOC by this author here) if we are to see effective implementation of its ideas.

As a way forward, one of the key demands is to develop a comprehensive action plan to tackle and, more importantly, adapt to climate change. This process must be set in motion by identifying implementable measures such as (1) risk assessment and mapping to gain a holistic understanding of the situation today; (2) developing flexible and adaptive approaches that comprise of non-typical solutions for varying situations witnessed across the city; (3) capacity building ― both in civic administration as well as within communities; and (4) phased implementation of long term plans that take into cognisance the immediate demands to mitigate risk as well as address permanent change that is required over time.

Above all, we as a people must change how we approach dealing with water. We must change our approaches and solutions from those that fight water to those that embrace living with water instead. We must aim to rebuild a truly sustainable and balanced biosphere ― one in which we ensure that systems work in harmony with each other as they do in nature. This would mean an inclusive and holistic approach towards the natural and the built environment ― both of which are necessary if we are to sustain ourselves amidst the rapidly changing climate of our planet. The push for unnatural engineering solutions must be curtailed while discussing and implementing practical solutions and tactical measures that are primarily soft in their approach and thereby complement nature. We understand that these measures also might take many years to complete, however, in the larger, long-term interest of ensuring a truly habitable city in the future these must be set in motion immediately.

Samarth Das
Mumbai

On The Nature of Cities

Musings on Winter’s Darkness and the Ways that Birds Brighten Urban Lives

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My enchantment began on a Saturday morning, shortly before solstice and not long after I’d moved from Anchorage’s lowlands to the city’s Hillside area. Lolling in bed, I glanced outside. And there, before me, were several black-capped chickadees flitting about a backyard spruce. Wonderful, I thought. Here’s a chance to meet some of my new neighbors. Inspired by their presence, I put a bird-feeder on the middle deck, where it could be easily observed from the living and dining rooms. My first-ever feeder wasn’t much to look at: an old, slightly bent baking pan. Still, it held plenty of seeds and sat nicely on the railing. Nothing happened that first day. But Sunday the birds returned. Seated at the dining room table, I watched a tiny, fluffy, winged creature land on the pan.

Clack-capped chickadee. Photo: Wayne Hall
Black-capped chickadee. Photo: Wayne Hall

The chickadee grabbed a seed and zoomed off to a nearby tree. Then in flashed another. And a third. For each the routine was similar: dart in, look around, peck at the tray, grab a seed, look around some more, and dart back out. Nervous little creatures, full of bright energy, they somehow penetrated the toughened shell of this former sports reporter and touched my heart. I laughed at their antics and felt an all-too-rare childlike fascination.

Common redpoll on a feeder. Photo: Wayne Hall
Common redpoll on a feeder. Photo: Wayne Hall
Red breasted nuthatch. Photo: Wayne Hall
Red breasted nuthatch. Photo: Wayne Hall

Within days, the chickadees were joined by several other species, most of which I’d never seen (or noticed) before: red-breasted nuthatch, common redpoll, pine siskin, pine grosbeak, downy woodpecker. And what started as mere curiosity bloomed into a consuming passion. I found myself roaming bookstores in search of birding guidebooks, spontaneously exchanging bird descriptions with a stranger, and purchasing fifty-pound bags of seeds.

All of this seemed very strange to a forty-four-year-old who had never been intrigued by birds (except for charismatic raptors) and previously judged bird watchers to be rather odd sorts. I didn’t know what it meant, except that a door had opened.

And I passed through…

I recount this encounter from the early 1990s because it became a turning point in my life. In the years since, birds have enriched my life in unexpected ways, including—and perhaps especially—they add cheer to my days during Alaska’s longest and harshest season.

Waxwings on mountain ash. Photo: Wayne Hall
Waxwings on mountain ash. Photo: Wayne Hall
Waxwing on a snowy mountain ash. Photo: Wayne Hall
Waxwing on a snowy mountain ash. Photo: Wayne Hall

Winters in America’s far north can be hard on a person, even one living in the city, along the relatively mild coast of Southcentral Alaska. Here in Anchorage, it’s not the cold that’s a problem (in January, our coldest month, the average high and low are 22° and 8° Fahrenheit, respectively), nor the snowfall (mid-winter rains are more depressing than a foot or two of snow). The biggest problem, it seems, is darkness. And one of the best solutions, as I’ll describe below, seems to be getting outdoors and paying attention to the brightening presence of birds and their voices.

Long hours of darkness wear on many Alaskans, even in Anchorage, which on the winter solstice receives slightly less than 5½ hours of daylight. And from late November to late January, nine weeks in all, we get less than seven daylight hours. (By the time this is posted in late February, we’ll be relishing nearly ten hours of daylight, with hints of the longer and brighter days at the end of winter’s long, dark tunnel, the spring equinox now less than a month away.)

Making matters worse are the abundance of heavily overcast days, which in my journals I frequently describe as “dreary.”

Waxwing on an ash. Photo: Wayne Hall
Waxwing on an ash. Photo: Wayne Hall
Waxwing eating a mountain ash berry. Photo: Wayne Hall
Waxwing eating a mountain ash berry. Photo: Wayne Hall
Mountain ash berries, a favorite waxwing food. Photo: Wayne Hall
Mountain ash berries, a favorite waxwing food. Photo: Wayne Hall
Boreal chickadee at a feeder. Photo: Wayne Hall
Boreal chickadee at a feeder. Photo: Wayne Hall

I simply cannot imagine living in the arctic, with daily light measured in minutes or not at all, for weeks or even months at a time. I’m amazed that people can survive, let alone thrive, along Alaska’s northern coast, where, for instance, the community of Barrow goes more than two months without seeing the sun (Nov. 20 through Jan. 23).

Based on my own experience and conversations with many friends and acquaintances, I feel safe in saying that winter’s darkness tends to take a cumulative toll, at least for those of us who grew up in more southerly locales and moved to Alaska as adults. After 15, 20, or 25 years of northern life, extended darkness weighs heavier on people, especially those who can’t easily get outdoors during the season’s short days. Or maybe it’s simply part of the aging process; one study conducted in Fairbanks concluded that seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, was more prevalent among people older than 40.

Looking back, it seems I somehow intuitively recognized my personal need for substantial daily winter doses of sunshine soon after moving from Southern California to Anchorage in February 1982, even if thick layers of clouds dimmed that natural light. Though I kept the long and sometimes crazy hours of a sports writer my first years in Alaska, I made it a point, whenever possible, to get outside during the day’s brighter hours, preferably for an hour or more.

Scheduling outdoor time became easier in the early 1990s, after I’d chosen the life of a freelance nature writer. It became part of my self-imposed job description to spend time “out in nature,” whatever the season or weather.

Not coincidentally, perhaps, it was also about this time that I discovered songbirds—in the darkest depths of winter, no less. That personal discovery, and my newfound passion for birds, was (as I note above) in turn tied to a move to Anchorage’s Hillside area (I’ve described that relocation in Living with Wildness: An Alaskan Odyssey and also my first TNOC posting, “Rediscovering Wildness—and Finding the ‘Wild Man’—in Alaska’s Urban Center”.

Following my life-changing introduction to the neighborhood chickadees, birds became another reason for me to more closely explore Anchorage’s landscape, throughout the year. And because not many birds stick around during winter—at least in large numbers—I quickly learned the more common resident species.

Anchorage’s Christmas Bird Count (CBC) participants have recorded as many as 52 species, but less than a dozen are likely to be regularly observed at feeders or along the city’s trails. And while a handful of raptors and a few water birds inhabit the city in winter, my favorites remain songbirds, especially the ones drawn into feeders, which I’ve been able to study and admire up close.

Mountain ash in autumn colors. Photo: Wayne Hall
Mountain ash in autumn colors. Photo: Wayne Hall

Both at home, as a feeder watcher, and on my walks (and occasional skis), it soon became part of my routine to look for, and listen to, my avian neighbors. And this became another way, an important way, that I could endure—or, better yet, embrace and occasionally delight in—Anchorage’s six- to seven-month-long winter season.

Besides the common feeder birds, a few other passerine species have brought me special delight: brown creepers, which often hang out with chickadees and nuthatches but rarely, in my experience, visit feeders; American dippers, impressive in their frigid, depth-of-winter swims; ravens, which in their raucous way enliven the city, many of them visiting during the daylight hours to hunt food and play, then head for the hills to roost for the night; and bohemian waxwings, which don’t stay the entire winter but help to brighten the city during winter’s darkest days.

The presence of waxwings seems especially worth mentioning here, not only because they bring such pleasure and amazement to many of us human residents of Anchorage, but because their temporary occupation of the city in enormous numbers is a relatively recent phenomenon that’s directly tied to an increase of other, introduced species. This local connection is another example of the issues that Matt Palmer explored in his TNOC posting, “Our Changing Urban Nature: Time to Embrace Exotic Species? (Or at Least Some of Them)”.

Bohemian waxwings are rarely, if ever, seen in Anchorage’s highly developed downtown and midtown areas from spring through fall. But in early winter—usually sometime in mid- to late October—they begin to appear, initially in small and easy to overlook numbers. But by year’s end, thousands of them inhabit the city.

It’s remarkable, really, that birds which normally avoid Alaska’s urban center suddenly invade it in such huge numbers. What draws them here (as you might expect) is food. In recent decades, locals have planted hundreds, perhaps thousands, of fruit-bearing trees in yards and along Anchorage’s streets. Over time, waxwings learned that when food becomes scarce in their normal habitats—the forested lands beyond Anchorage—there is still plenty to eat in the city. Singly, in pairs, and small groups, these wide-ranging “gypsy birds” head into town for an amazing feast.

Roaming the city, they swoop and dive in synchronized flight while they move from neighborhood to neighborhood and street to street, descending on yards and greenbelts to strip ornamental trees of their fruit: mountain ash berries, chokecherries, crab apples.

As the days and weeks pass, small groups coalesce into ever-larger flocks, until by December multitudes of the birds swirl through the sky. A few years ago, participants in Anchorage’s CBC tallied more than 22,000 waxwings. One serious birder told me he’s seen as many as 3,000 in a single flock and knew of others who’ve watched 5,000 or more in flight.

Once the food is gone, the birds depart. Most years, Anchorage is again largely waxwing free by late January or early February.

Chokeberry blossoms. Photo: Wayne Hall
Chokeberry blossoms. Photo: Wayne Hall

At least one group of the fruiting trees that pull in waxwings, all commonly called chokecherries, has proved itself a troublesome invasive. The European bird cherry or Mayday tree has especially become a problem. Local foresting experts say this chokecherry is displacing native vegetation, pushing out understory plants like Canadian dogwood, willow, and alder. In 2011, municipal forester Scott Stringer told local TV station KTUU that the Mayday tree “has taken over the entire creek corridor along Chester Creek,” one of the main streams that pass through Anchorage.

Besides displacing indigenous plants, chokecherry trees have killed moose. As reported in the Anchorage Daily News in February 2011, a state wildlife veterinarian determined that three moose calves had died from cyanide poisoning after eating the frozen buds, branches, and berries of Mayday trees. It’s likely that some portion of other winter-kill moose have similarly been poisoned over the years, but the attention given to those particular calves’ deaths, plus the increased and substantial evidence that chokecherries are supplanting native species, has led to an effort to control them. Besides agency efforts, the public has been recruited. During the summer of 2011, for example, more than 100 volunteers participated in a  “weed smackdown” to remove chokecherries from Anchorage’s Valley of the Moon Park (the event reported by KTUU).

Given the chokecherries’ popularity with both waxwings and humans (in early summer the trees have beautiful, fragrant white flowers and they ornament many yards around the city), it’s likely the chokecherry is here to stay. But forestry experts hope that continued removal programs—including occasional smackdowns—and efforts to get nurseries and homeowners to stop planting new trees will limit the invasives’ spread.

However much chokecherries are cut back, there are enough other fruiting trees spread around town to keep waxwings returning to our city.

There’s one way, in particular, that Anchorage’s winter birds brighten my days: with their voices.

Even when I can’t see my avian neighbors, as sometimes when walking through the woods, I can usually hear them. In fact their voices are often what alert me to their presence. Every day when I step outside my house, whether it’s to retrieve the newspaper or mail, to shovel snow, or go walking, I listen for birds. Whether it’s the chatter of black-capped and boreal chickadees, the nasally yank, yank, yank of nuthatches, the chirping of redpolls, the warbled songs of grosbeaks, the cawing of ravens, or the soft trills of waxwings, their voices add some measure of brightness to my day and this is no small thing.

There are times when I’ll hear the faint voice of a chickadee or redpoll or waxwing, and stop to see if I can find the bird. And in my stopping I’ll begin to see several of them, occasionally (with redpolls and waxwings) even dozens, that I hadn’t noticed only moments before, perhaps because I was lost in my own thoughts or worries or plans. And I’m reminded how even in the city we’re surrounded by wild creatures and other forms of life, which we so often ignore or take for granted.

Bird song is more likely to get our attention in spring and summer, when dozens of species mark the nesting season with their loud and often lovely voices. But though less abundant and less diverse in winter, the songs and chatter remain important to me and, I’m sure, to others who pay attention. I was reminded of this while reading Tim Beatley’s TNOC posting, “Celebrating the Natural Soundscapes in Winter,” which inspired me to write a commentary for a local online news journal, the Alaska Dispatch, “The noise and the fury: Snowmachines in Kincaid Park?”.

Our cities have plenty of obnoxious noise. But they also have their share of pleasing, relaxing, and delightful sounds too, most of them, in my experience, provided by nature.

Here I’ll return one more time to the waxwings and their brightening influence.

Bohemian waxwing. Photo: Wayne Hall
Bohemian waxwing. Photo: Wayne Hall

The presence of breathtakingly huge flocks, and their sudden descent upon neighborhoods, is only one of several great delights that bohemian waxwings bring to Anchorage residents. They are among the handsomest birds to inhabit the far north, their bodies mostly covered by a gray suit of silky feathers, tinted russet about the head. Their feathered finery is further decorated by a tail brightly edged in yellow, a black eye mask, and white-striped wings that bear the small red “wax” bars that give the birds their name.

Beyond that, waxwings sing and talk among themselves in soft, reedy trills that are pleasing to the human ear. When a flock visits the neighborhood, I often stand silently a while, simply to enjoy the music in their voices.

It is an amazing and unforgettable thing, to stand among hundreds, perhaps thousands, of birds as they swirl through one’s own neighborhood, trilling softly yet brightly. To be surrounded by such abundant, spirited life is an absolute treat, a flash of brilliance and hopefulness during the north’s longest, harshest season. No wonder, then, that the waxwings’ short but intense presence here—and my increased awareness of them—has become one of my great pleasures, and comforts, during Alaska’s long winters.

Bill Sherwonit
Anchorage, Alaska, USA

My Experiment with One Week of Zero Waste

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This past summer in Beijing, my coworker initiated a zero waste campaign for the office. Under the campaign, we pledged to live zero waste (or, at least, to consciously minimize our waste to the most practical degree) for as long as we wanted to or could. Zero waste is an ideology that strives to avoid any waste generation that would lead to dumping, landfill or incineration by promoting waste reduction, reuse, recycling and composting. My coworker was committing to zero waste for a year, a task daunting even to waste reduction believers like myself. I signed up for one week.

Over the course of the week, I collected the disposable trash that I created in a bag. The idea was that a visible volume of waste that we claimed responsibility for would drive us to minimize our waste. This motivation worked. Many interns and I began to bring our own bowls and chopsticks to the convenience store, Lawson’s, to get lunch, instead of using the store’s eagerly distributed plastic containers and disposable chopsticks. We consciously avoided disposable items—or at least delayed them. It took some guilty but practical planning to refrain from counting the large packaging waste from the air filter I had just bought, because I timed my zero waste week to officially start after the purchase, and to withhold from buying pre-packaged items until after the week ended.

The concept of zero waste reinforces the notion that waste must be reduced by consciously changing consumption and resource use patterns.

In the meantime, we tested our creativity and resolution as we wrapped food stall pancakes with handkerchiefs and obstinately said “no” to waiters intent on delivering wrapped utensils and paper napkins. (For suggestions on living zero waste, see blogs such as Trash is for Tossers, Zero Waste Home, Zero Waste Millennial and No Impact Man.) At the end of the week, my bag of disposable waste consisted mostly of tissues and plastic wrappers. I conveniently chose not to include food scraps, which I allotted to our office vermiculture composting bin; nor did I include recyclables, which I trusted the office recycling collection system to sell to recycling companies. Had neither of these systems been in place, my task of waste reduction would assuredly have been more difficult.

zero waste 1
My bag of one week’s worth of waste. Image: Briana Liu

The greatest difficulty of our zero waste experience was in our ability to assert the creed of zero waste over the reality of living in an industrial, manufactured world. We watched videos demonstrating how to create toothpaste from baking soda and recalled NGOs organizing citizens to craft soaps from recycled oil. But while quirky and quaint, these DIY activities were neither appealing nor sustainable in the long term. Can we truly reject the convenience and effectiveness of industrial products for homemade ones, especially without undesirable costs of time and energy?

Some zero waste practitioners do commit themselves to self-manufacturing and almost absolute waste avoidance, even at disproportionate costs to efficiency. This is akin to interpreting zero waste in a puritanical sense. But instead of a strict adherence to purging waste altogether, zero waste could be seen as a goal to actively renounce waste whenever possible. Efforts conducted in a zero waste spirit can substantially reduce waste, even if they cannot eliminate waste altogether. Simple actions such as reusing grocery bags, buying in bulk, limiting cleaning products and bringing a reusable bowl to Lawson’s are neither time-consuming nor difficult. They just require a basic awareness of resource consumption, which should prod the brain to spend a few extra seconds contemplating a more sustainable alternative.

Thus, while impractical if taken at face value, the zero waste movement is unequivocally important. Like most movements, beyond behavioral change, a main objective of zero waste is to build awareness. The concept of zero waste reinforces the notion that waste must be reduced by consciously changing consumption and resource use patterns, and not just diverted into various streams of processing, be they recycling or disposal. Whether one decides to commit to zero waste or “a little bit of waste” or “as little waste as possible,” the zero waste ideology will have effectively succeeded in its aim.

zero waste 2
A fellow zero waste week participant bringing her own bowl for lunch. Image: Briana Liu

Zero waste as a platform for less waste—and less consumption

As citizens, waste reduction and reuse are the only areas over which we exercise direct control. Once our waste hits the curb or trash can, it is out of our hands. Even in developed countries, we cannot guarantee that our waste is actually recycled in a safe and environmentally friendly manner. Millions of tons of recyclables (frequently mixed with nonrecyclable or hazardous waste) are shipped to China and other developing countries every year, where the voracious appetite exists to recycle and remanufacture them into new products. The conditions under which these waste materials are disassembled, sorted, cleaned, recycled, burnt and disposed are often atrocious, with severe and widespread damage to human health and the surrounding environment. The alternative to recycling is worse. In China, incineration plants and landfills often lack enforcement or formal management. Landfills suffer from overcapacity and insufficient treatment, and incineration plants trudge through the coal-powered burning of large proportions of wet organic matter. The result is a toxic waste system staggering from glut.

Zero waste, as a philosophy and set of life practices, empowers people to exert less strain on this overtaxed system. It encourages people to act within their scope of control and responsibility. By focusing on areas of waste management in which they have direct control and can see tangible impact, people place higher value on waste reduction and reuse. This represents a fundamental shift from the American environmental movement’s widespread obsession with recycling alone.

Critically, attentiveness to the reduction of waste may progress into much needed awareness on limiting consumption. Consumption and waste are, by default, two sides of the same coin. What may seem an obvious solution to the waste problem—consume less—is constantly averted in favor of ways to hide, contain, export, burn and convert waste. But waste and its byproducts don’t just disappear. Recycling waste, no matter in what form, always costs more to the environment and to people than if the waste were not generated in the first place. Similarly, consuming products, no matter how “green” the design, always damages the environment more than if they were not produced for consumption to begin with. This is especially true if our consumption is seen holistically as an intensive process creating huge amounts of waste at each stage in its life cycle, from extraction to manufacturing to distribution to disposal.

Taken more broadly, the concept of zero waste should by no means be limited to its current framing as mostly a municipal solid waste issue. Waste is the residual product of the severely extractive and destructive industry of consumption on resources and life on this planet. Whether waste manifests as municipal solid waste, energy inefficiency, urban sprawl, cancers and extinctions, greenhouse gas emissions, diminishing soil fertility or decay of natural habitat, it is but a product of the unrelenting demands of possession, expansion and consumption that humans make on their environment. I suspect that this aspect of consumption may be overlooked even within the zero waste movement. With so much emphasis on finding less wasteful alternatives and indeed on the tangible end product of waste itself, zero waste enthusiasts may neglect the consumption that begets waste in the first place. The natural and logical extension of zero waste ideology is a critical reevaluation of the necessity and desirability of the consumption rampant in our lives.

Culture and values control the creation of waste 

I spent many years of my childhood and young adulthood in Beijing. Living with my grandparents, I learned that nothing should be wasted. We reused old socks as cleaning rags, refashioned corn husks as oil absorbents for dirty plates, and refilled jars with jams or spices unrelated to what was advertised on their labels. Occasionally, peddlers would stop in the courtyard and we would bring them some newspaper or cardboard, which they would carefully weigh and collect, giving us a few yuan in exchange for the bundle. This was the face of recycling in China.

This form of household reuse and informal recycling constituted an important pillar of waste management in urban China. Since then, cities have exploded in size, and people’s pockets have grown heavier. So, too, have the piles of waste weighing on city infrastructure. Unsurprisingly, people are not only buying and throwing away more, they are also growing increasingly reliant on disposable goods. What is more troublesome than growing rates of unrecyclable and unrecycled trash is the tendency for people to no longer regard throwing out reusable things as wasteful. It is this change in attitude that has, more than anything, created the slew of waste in which we currently live. My grandfather balks at the plates of food left to waste on restaurant and cafeteria tables. Most don’t bat an eye. I remember a campaign that I started on Peking University’s campus two years ago, where people pledged to commit to one environmentally friendly practice. There was a board with suggestions, including many surrounding resource efficiency and waste reduction. It was remarkable that many people, after glancing it over, concluded that they already do most of the practices in their everyday lives. Their comments reflect that though the average Chinese level of waste is nowhere close to American standards, the baseline for what is considered wasteful is rapidly changing. With plastered slogans and advertisements calling loudly for citizens to conserve more and waste less, one wonders if people truly know how to take those actions anymore.

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A site for imported waste from developed countries in the countryside near Foshan, China. Image: Briana Liu
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A credit card—the key to consumption—now reduced to waste. Image: Briana Liu

Waste institutions depend on people

Many would call for government to take a greater role in establishing a system for waste reduction, reuse, composting and recycling. This is no doubt essential. Cities such as San Francisco, the city closest to achieving zero waste, and Capannori and Contarina, two Italian cities making remarkable progress towards zero waste, treat waste management as a system that takes into account the whole of the product life cycle. However, for governmental efforts to succeed, it is critical that citizens accept responsibility for their waste and act upon this responsibility. They can choose to reduce wasteful consumption, or to at least try to recycle and properly dispose of waste. Waste institutions founder without citizen engagement and support. The success of zero waste thus hinges on civic advocacy and education about waste. It is a task that most developing country governments are hard-pressed to accomplish. From international organizations such as the Zero Waste International Alliance to local NGOs carrying out initiatives on community recycling, the nongovernmental sector has been struggling to fill the leadership void in reversing the tide of unsustainable consumption and waste disposal. Central to this struggle is redefining our notion of what is waste. What can be reused or recycled, and what is needed in the first place, stems from our very perception of objects and resources. Zero waste proves its value in forcing us to reevaluate the materialism in our lives—and in challenging us to do without.

Briana Liu
Beijing

On The Nature of Cities

My Past, Present, and Future: A Review of Ecological Mediations

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A review of Ecological Mediations, by Dr. Karan R Aggarwala, Xlibris, 2010.
The sciences meet the arts in the poetic renderings of Dr. Karan Aggarwala’s 2010 collection, Ecological Mediations(Xlibris). An optometrist by training, Dr. Aggarwala’s poetic view of the world reflects years of science met with a holistic ecological view of the mechanisms of our world. His inspiration draws clearly from personal experiences and stories of his family. He writes his heart on the page, without frivolous language or construction. This clear-cut style serves as the connecting force for the wide-reaching themes of the collection.

I am a man the day I feel
responsible for my thoughts, feelings, and actions;
my past, present and future.
(excerpt from “Twenty-one”, pg. 169)
One of the interesting highlights from this collection is the way that Aggarwala views humanity and the human experience as not only a connection between family, friends, and other physical beings, but also as an ephemeral experience that questions the role of spirituality and religion in the position of humans in the natural environment. Aggarwala’s style does not lean toward pushing religious agenda but gives pause and consideration to the way that spirituality can connect people with their purpose, their family, and their environment. Each poem in the collection holds its weight as a stand-alone story that paints a picture of moments in a person’s life. They don’t have to be connected, or even feel related, but Aggarwala’s words paint the picture of a whole, holistic life through unrelated experiences that continue to build a full picture of what it means to be human in an ecological environment that calls for cooperation and coexistence that is constantly taken for granted. This collection does not take that connection lightly and works to build moments into the collection that remind the audience of a forgotten connection to their peaceful and tenuous world.

Given was I instead,
a universe of inter-related cells and tissues,
that work in harmony only so long
as I want them to.
(excerpt from “My territory”, pg. 28)
Aggarwala’s medical background shines through as a new view on a very essential connection between the human experience and the natural world. The structure of the poems in this collection highlight the harmony of the human body in a world that can be affected by beauty, disease, climate, and physical breakdown. Poems such as “Confused with” and “My territory” connect the ideas of the ethereal found in religion with the relation of cells and physical beings. The medical technicality of Aggarwala’s clear knowledge does not weigh the piece down and instead builds an interesting view into physical action and movement that could easily be missed by everyday readers. Highlighting these biological moments adds another layer to the hope and the connectivity that holds the collection together as a body of work.

Ecological Mediations is a conglomeration of many themes and feelings that ring true for our current world that thrives on corrupting our ecological beauty and resources. Aggarwala is able to commiserate with and appreciate the natural world, both for the way that it truly is and for the way that humans sometimes trick themselves into believing it is.

The style of these works, as a whole, plays with the line between attract and destruction as humans interact with their surroundings in a way that creates ecological and emotional drain. Each poem creates an individualized space to question what it means to be human, to interact with the natural world, and to search for meaning through interpersonal relationships and connections to a feeling of world religion.

Good things there are
many more to do;
for some of these callings
we are relying on you.
(excerpt from “Message for Jyoti”, pg. 132)
With the state of the world as it is, I find comfort in reading the original spaces that Aggarwala has created as a selection of independently impactful poems. The collection does not feel like it is meant to be read from start to finish as a narrative parade of poems. Instead, Aggarwala’s attention to sculpting individual spaces serves as a reflection of the way humans feel multiplicity, always searching for a new way to see, imagine, and connect.

Malerie Lovejoy
Oxford

On The Nature of Cities

Nairobi’s Rapidly Expanding Transport Network is Costing its Ecological Lifeline

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The right of people to freely move, interact, work, and associate should not be at the expense of wildlife to thrive. It should complement their right to a clean, safe, and productive environment.
Since 2013, the government of Kenya has laid out extensive expansion plans for the city’s transport infrastructure. Nairobi County’s strategy lays out a progressive framework that has seen the introduction of Mass Rapid Transit Systems (MRTS), the standard gauge railway, connectors, and the expansion of several other feeder roads. The 2006-2025 Master Plan of the Nairobi Metropolitan Area also portrays Nairobi as a globally significant and accessible city with modernized transport systems. The World Bank reports indicate that Nairobi residents spend an average of one hour to commute to and from their workplaces, a delay the government approximates costs 58 million Kshs (about 5.8M USD) per day. About 12 percent of the residents use private cars while the rest prefer public means, which puts pressure on the city’s transport systems. To increase efficiency and minimize related economic strain, the government has rolled out various road infrastructural projects throughout the city. Most of these, however, cause immeasurable ecological harm to available urban green spaces.

The most recent development in this quest for an interlinked, faster, and efficient movement of people and goods within the city is the construction of a four-lane thoroughfare aimed at connecting Nairobi’s Westland area and the iconic Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. The 62 billion Kshs (about 6.2 million USD) expressway activated by the China Road and Bridge Corporation will also serve residents of Mlolongo and fasten the time taken to reach the international departure station. The construction follows a green light from the country’s National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA), which conducted an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment of the then proposed urban infrastructure. Once completed, the expressway will ease the flow of traffic as travelers will not have to go through the city’s central business district to catch their flights. However, the environmental harm caused by this project is large-scale and somewhat irreversible.The environmental and social impact report of the enhancement of road A104 from James Gichuru road junction to Rironi indicated that contractors needed to clear trees and other vegetation for the multimillion-dollar project to take place, resulting in loss of habitat and biodiversity. Other negative environmental impacts of the road construction outlined in the report included contamination of soil and water resources, soil erosion at road reserve, and increased waste generation.

Road developers of the Nairobi Express way from Mlolongo to James Gichuru earmarked sections of vital public green spaces like Uhuru Park and Nairobi Arboretum, and trees that host birds around Westlands and Nyayo stadium roundabouts, for clearance. In a set of conditions provided by NEMA in March 2020, the authority advised the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) to mitigate the damage by planting trees in all affected spaces. The CRBC was also expected to clean the areas of the Nairobi river over which the road would cross. NEMA did not, however, give clear communication on whether the Chinese contractor should replace the mostly indigenous trees with similar ones. My common observation over the years has been that road builders often replace indigenous vegetation with exotic grass and trees species, and ornamental plants.

To the astonishment of conservationists and concerned residents of Nairobi, the Kenya National Highway Authority (KeNHA) had confirmed last month that it would uproot an iconic fig tree that that has been sitting pretty at the crossway between Waiyaki Way and Mpaka Road for over 100 years. This news elicited demonstrations from groups of environmental activists, calling the government to consider biodiversity in its quest for modernization of the transport systems. In a news conference held on Wednesday this week, the director general of the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS), General Mohammed Badi, assured the public that the iconic tree will stay put in its current place. While visiting the site where the gigantic tree exists, General Badi said he was working on a Presidential declaration to preserve the famed tree.

The spectacular tree, estimated to be the height of a four-storey building, will be adopted by the Nairobi Metropolitan Services. The Nairobi boss further instructed the environmental department to erect a fence as a protection measure to ensure Nairobian continue to enjoy its presence. He also vowed to “recover Nairobi’s lost green spaces”. While this breathed a sign of relief to many and a clear show of a battle won, many other green areas in the city have already gone under the wrath of builder’s axe and irreversible damage witnessed.

Growing up, I was always welcomed to Nairobi with extensive roadside green spaces full of trees and life. The stretch between Uthiru and Westlands had well-preserved tree lines that truly depicted Nairobi as the Green City Under the Sun. It was always refreshing to have this feeling before you go deep into the noisy and busy estates that form the city. The story of the Nairobi green reception area has since changed. The expansion of the Nairobi-Nakuru

Highway has entailed massive vegetation loss with minimum to no replacement done so far.

Such unprecedented habitat fragmentation has a far-reaching contribution to biodiversity loss. Isolation of animal and bird species often makes them vulnerable to predation. Displaced animals may also find it hard to adapt to new surroundings. Woodland-dependent species of animals may find it difficult to settle in fragmented patches of landscapes. Subdivision of breeding areas also disrupts natural mating patterns, which eventually affects the flow of genes within a species. Residents of Nairobi are denied their fundamental right to access to a clean and healthy environment when ecosystems are destroyed or fragmented, as they are unable to function optimally.

Nairobi’s river ecology is not spared. The Express Way will traverse over rivers Nairobi and Ngong. In its impact assessment report, NEMA indicated that the road contractor should ensure that sections of the river over which the road will pass are cleaned. While this sounds like a glimpse of the right thing to be done, it is unclear whether the “cleaning” process will mitigate all the harm caused by construction on the rivers’ structure and functionality.

Nairobi’s population, which is about 4.4 million people, is expected to double in the next 50 years. The projected increase dictates the need to conserve the few green spaces available in the city. Conservation organizations such as the Kenyan Youth Biodiversity Network, Wangari Maathai Foundation, Natural Justice, Wildlife Direct, and the Green Belt Movement have been at the forefront of opposing the construction of the expressway as initially planned, citing the adverse impact on the city’s ecological spaces. In June 2020, a petition was filed in court under the umbrella of the Daima consortium, propelling NEMA to adequately involve the public before approving the construction of the expressway.

An initial statement released by the government in 2019 indicated that Uhuru Park, the largest, historical, and most preferred public spaces, was to lose about a 23 meters thick stretch to the road. We will keep a keen eye on it to see if the current construction will tamper with this central park. Our freedom fighters and environmental defenders like Professor Wangari Maathai fought to have these spaces protected from degradation, grabbers, and encroachment. The milestone makes Uhuru Park a national symbol of freedom and the power that people have in standing for their ecological rights. We must fight to ensure that the legacy is maintained and that future generations enjoy their right to the ecosystem services provided by these spaces.

The Kenyan presidential declaration on the iconic urban tree, in the possession of the author.

The four million Kenyans who currently live in Nairobi depend on forested areas such as recreational parks to relax, appreciate the city’s beauty, and catch some fresh air. Nature lovers find green spaces such as the Nairobi Arboretum, City park, Karura forest, and Ngong Road forest perfect hideouts and ideal for cycling, birdwatching, and meditation. Living in one of the busiest, hence polluted, cities in Africa, these green spaces absorb a considerable amount of smoke, dust, and other harmful air particles.

The $467M Southern Bypass that left sections of the once pristine Ngong Road Forest cleared is another visible case of how Nairobi lost some of its urban biodiversity. Ngong Road forest, a once continuous and thriving urban natural ecosystem with endless varieties of trees and a host to a myriad species of birds and animals, was fragmented into five sections. The forest is the only true indigenous forest in the county and hosts the near-threatened African Crown Eagle as one of its key bird species. There have been efforts by multiple role players to recover the tree cover lost due to the construction of the Southern Bypass. However, the conversion of interior habitats into road-edge habitats means the ecosystem can no longer function as efficiently as it used to. The 30 km road has had visible habitat fragmentation that points to an immediate impact of wildlife dislocation and isolation, and an undocumented probability of local extirpations.

Development that is informed by the density of cars in the city is unsustainable. Nairobi’s population will continue to steadily rise, creating an endless need for additional infrastructure and other social amenities. Young people, together with other stakeholders, should help the government urgently explore mechanisms of improving road transport using the available space, without the need to put pressure on existing green spaces. Contractors must urgently prioritize innovative ways of maintaining the integrity of green spaces, reducing dependency on private cars, and incorporating sustainability into road plans. It is becoming increasingly important for commuters to consider carpooling to access work, recreation, and shopping. Fewer cars on the road will always reduce demand for the expansion of road infrastructure. I encourage the use of more sustainable modes of transport, such as cycling, that do not need large spaces of land.

The construction of a standard gauge railway (SGR) right through the Nairobi National Park is another clear illustration of how the government of Kenya has its priorities twisted. Nairobi National Park, an extensive natural space of its kind in the world is now battling a myriad of challenges, including invasive species. It is estimated that the park lost about 100 acres of conservation land to the multibillion gigantic transport project. This is a considerable amount of conservation land to lose, considering the park is only 117 km2. The already vulnerable ecosystem was divided by the railway line into two sections. The deliberate disruption of the continuous flow of the park poses a threat of confining animals in certain areas, an element that is likely to promote inbreeding and ecosystem imbalance. Reducing the size of the park will escalate human-wildlife conflicts.

The Environmental Impact Assessment report, conducted only after a public outcry, did not adequately cover the potential ecological impacts of the project in the park. Efforts by environmentalists against the railway line passing through the park were unsuccessful. One of the most memorable moments in my life was taking a signed petition to the national parliament of Kenya and the headquarters of the Kenya Railway Corporation. We also held demonstrations to urge the government to consider re-routing the railway line. All in vain.

The right of people to freely move, interact, work, and associate should not be at the expense of wildlife to thrive. It should complement their right to a clean, safe, and productive environment. Nairobi’s urban infrastructure development has proven that political priorities are more economical than ecological, which could affect the city’s functionality in the long term. The County Government of Nairobi should evaluate their infrastructural development priorities and consider the sustainability of its green spaces.

Kevin Lunzalu
Nairobi

On The Nature of Cities