Taking an Ecosystem Approach to Urban Habitat Conservation and Planning

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Sustainability has two pivot points—first, it advocates for an explicit ecosystem approach to urban ecology; and second, it argues for a distributed, decentralized approach to nature conservation. The first focus derives from a nested, scale-hierarchic process–function view of nature, one that transcends the morphological limits of conventional nature depiction. Here, we take nature to be emergent from its constitutive flows of matter, energy, and information rather than a mechanical assemblage of discrete objects, entities, and events. Or, differently, one that takes complexity to be bound to the relationships that make it meaningful to name particular boundaries around specific systems, subsystems, and suprasystems, and not to the individual parts that make up the whole. Then, complexity is a function of the nature and quality of the relationships that make it meaningful to name a particular system of concern, and one in which reality is more readily knowable by the processes and functions that constitute the system we engage with. A tree, for instance, is more than the aggregation of trunk, roots, branches, leaves, and such, but instead is better knowable as the flows of carbon, nitrogen, water, and so on—flows, then, of matter, energy and information.

Such a process–function view of the world—indeed, of our cities—shows us a world where conservation actions within urban ecosystems take heed of phenomena such as urban heat islands, and embrace interventions such as raingardens and bioswales, as storm water management techniques. This view of our cities as processes and functions makes our cities much more habitable and ecological, and processes such as storm water management using green infrastructure interventions make for a world in which nature and human habitation come to coexist in precious and meaningful ways.

Decentralizing Nature Conservation

The second pivot point is about nature conservation as a distributed function. Rather than being satisfied with finding, bounding, and naming large tracts of wilderness as pristine nature, what if we were to seek to conserve nature everywhere—take our manicured and groomed lawns and give them over to nature, find the byways and pathways around our high-tension cables and mindfully give them over to a purposive nature, one that intentionally makes for habitat that aims to help endangered species of birds and animals to gain footholds everywhere.

For ecological conservation to become an ethos, a modality, it must manifest itself everywhere, not just in pristine wilderness—and for nature conservation to be pervasive and prevalent, it must certainly manifest itself wherever nature shows itself. Besides, the Anthropocene is here, and it is Urban. Yes, nature in wilderness matters, but so too does nature in our cities. There are at least two reasons we should care about urban habitat conservation—first, because biodiversity does not stop where the city begins; and second, because nature as it does manifest itself in our cities can be quite unique and precious in its own right (Schwartz et al. 2002).

“Humans as Components of Ecosystems”

A key meme in this move that I am advocating for is the notion of “humans as components of ecosystems.” We are a part of nature, not apart from it (Pickett and Grove, 2009; Alberti et al. 2003). Once we accept that reconceptualization, then the idea that cities are artifacts and so exclusive of nature begins to erode, and we begin to see that endangered species and imperiled ecological communities are very much a part of our cities (Olive and Minichiello, 2013). In fact, as one analysis indicates, a full 60 percent of all endangered species can be found within the US’s metropolitan areas, and 30 percent within the nation’s 35 largest metro areas (Ewing, et al. 2005:1).

As an example of this idea, Tallamy (2020) has argued that lands affiliated with power and pipeline right of ways, golf courses, airports, urban, suburban and exurban yards, roadsides and railroad right of ways, together, may represent close to 600 million acres of land within the United States, land which is potentially available to us for turning back to nature in some substantive way. The argument here is that if we were to convert such underutilized and “marginal” lands to insect habitat—specifically, to habitat for caterpillar-friendly vegetation—we would strike a blow for birds and for biodiversity on an unprecedented scale, while at the same time capturing carbon at unparalleled levels.

According to one estimate, we have 32 million acres of lawn in the US (Milesi et al., 2005). If we convert half that area to wilderness, we are talking about 16 million acres of wilderness—and if this land were planted for species friendly to insects such as caterpillars, we would have created habitat that promotes biodiversity and in support of bird species. This is ten times the land area within Yellowstone National Park.

Patch Dynamics

Of course, habitat fragmentation is one inevitable consequence of the framing of urban ecosystems, but even so, as Kendal et al. (2017) show, small, fragmented, and disconnected nature reserves can be important to plant species conservation. In fact, as Schwartz et al. (2002) show, small fragments of habitat may be the more precious in representing unique habitats. Indeed, an explication of conservation priorities in urbanizing places can lead to useful connectivity gains (Xun et al. 2017); and ecosystem connectivity across spatial fragmentation may have actual ecosystem benefits, too. 

In addition, there is the social justice and equity lens—in the sense that city dwellers should have access to Nature in their own back yard, so to speak. Rich tapestries of nature, sprawled across our back and front yards interface with human habitation in deeply integrative ways. Taken all together, “urban habitat conservation” planning is much more than boutique science. It is a world in and of itself.

References

Alberti, Marina & John F. Marzluff. 2004. “Ecological resilience in urban ecosystems: Linking urban patterns to human and ecological functions,” Urban Ecosystems, v7 (2004): 241–265. 

Alberti, Marina et al. 2003. “Integrating Humans into Ecology: Opportunities and Challenges for Studying Urban Ecosystems,” BioScience, v53n12 (2003): 1169-1179.

Bin Xun, Bin & Deyong Yu & Xue Wang. 2017. “Prioritizing habitat conservation outside protected areas in rapidly urbanizing landscapes: A patch network approach,” Landscape and Urban Planning, 157 (2017) 532–541. 

Cerra, Joshua F. 2017. “Emerging strategies for voluntary urban ecological stewardship on private property,” Landscape and Urban Planning, 157 (2017) 586–597. 

Ewing, Reid et al. 2005. Endangered By Sprawl: How Runaway Development Threatens America’s Wildlife. National Wildlife Federation, Smart Growth America, and NatureServe. Washington, D.C., January 2005.

Hostetler, Mark et al. 2011.”Conserving urban biodiversity? Creating green infrastructure is only the first step,” Landscape and Urban Planning, v100 (2011) 369–371. 

Kendal, Dave, et al. 2017. “The importance of small urban reserves for plant conservation,” Biological Conservation, v213 (2017): 146–153. 

Markovchick-Nicholls, Lisa et al. 2008. “Relationships between Human Disturbance and Wildlife Land Use in Urban Habitat Fragments,” Conservation Biology, v 22n1 (Feb., 2008): 99-109. 

Milesi, Cristina & Steven W. Running & Christopher D. Elvidge & John B. Dietz & Benjamin T. Tuttle & Ramakrishna M. Nemani.  2005.  “Mapping and Modeling the Biogeochemical Cycling of Turf Grasses in the United States,”  Environmental Management, v36n3, (2005): 426–438.

Nilon, Charles H. et al. 2017. “Planning for the Future of Urban Biodiversity: A Global Review of City-Scale Initiatives,” BioScience, v67n4 (April 2017): 332-342. 

Olive, Andrea & Alexa Minichiello. 2013. “Wild things in urban places: America’s largest cities and multi-scales of governance for endangered species conservation,” Applied Geography, 43 (2013) 56e66. 

Pickett, Steward T.A. & J.M. Grove. 2009. “Urban Ecosystems: What Would Tansley Do?” Urban Ecosystems, v12 (2009): 1-8. 

Poe, Melissa R. et al. 2013. “Urban Forest Justice and the Rights to Wild Foods, Medicines, and Materials in the City,” Human Ecology, v41 (2013): 409-422. 

Schwartz, Mark W. et al. 2002. “Conservation’s Disenfranchised Urban Poor,” BioScience, v52n7 (July 2002): 601-606.

Tallamy, Doug.  2020.  “Nature’s Best Hope,” A Talk to the Caldwell Environmental Commission, NJ, on Thursday, May 28th, 2020.  Accessed on Tuesday, August 18th, 2020, at this link.

Wu, Jianguo & G. Darrel Jenerette, & John L. David. 2003. “Linking Land-use Change with Ecosystem Processes: A Hierarchical Patch Dynamic Model,” in S. Guhathakurta (ed.) 2003. Integrated Land Use and Environmental Models. Springer: Berlin. [99-119]

Dr. Ashwani Vasishth
Guest Editor

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• urban ecology
• ecosystem management
• urban habitat conservation
• nature conservation
• biodiversity conservation