Despite repeated calls to action, proposals for urban conservation are often met with surprise or scepticism. There remains a pervasive narrative in policy, practice, and the public psyche that urban ...environments, although useful for engaging people with nature or providing ecosystem services, are of little conservation value. We argue that the tendency to overlook the conservation value of urban environments stems from misconceptions about the ability of native species to persist within cities and towns and that this, in turn, hinders effective conservation action. However, recent scientific evidence shows that these assumptions do not always hold. Although it is generally true that increasing the size, quality, and connectivity of habitat patches will improve the probability that a species can persist, the inverse is not that small, degraded, or fragmented habitats found in urban environments are worthless. In light of these findings we propose updated messages that guide and inspire researchers, practitioners, and decision makers to undertake conservation action in urban environments: consider small spaces, recognize unconventional habitats, test creative solutions, and use science to minimize the impacts of future urban development.
Corrección de Ideas Erróneas para Inspirar Acciones de Conservación en Ambientes Urbanos
Resumen
A pesar de las repetidas llamadas a actuar, las propuestas para la conservación urbana con frecuencia se enfrentan a reacciones de sorpresa o escepticismo. Todavía existe una narrativa penetrante en la política, la práctica y el psique del público que dicta que los ambientes urbanos, aunque sean útiles para comprometer a las personas con la naturaleza o para proporcionar servicios ambientales, tienen poco valor para la conservación. Argumentamos que la tendencia de pasar por alto el valor para la conservación de los ambientes urbanos surge de las ideas erróneas sobre la habilidad que tienen las especies nativas para persistir dentro de ciudades y pueblos y que esto, en cambio, impide la acción efectiva de la conservación. A pesar de esto, la evidencia científica reciente muestra que estas suposiciones no siempre se sostienen. Aunque casi siempre es verdad que incrementar el tamaño, la calidad y la conectividad de los fragmentos de hábitat mejorará la probabilidad de que una especie pueda persistir, lo contrario, que los hábitats fragmentados, degradados y pequeños que se encuentran en los ambientes urbanos son inútiles, no lo es. A la luz de estos hallazgos proponemos mensajes actualizados que guíen e inspiren a los investigadores, practicantes y a los tomadores de decisiones a emprender acciones de conservación en ambientes urbanos: considerar espacios pequeños, reconocer hábitats poco convencionales, probar con soluciones creativas, y utilizar la ciencia para minimizar los impactos de desarrollos urbanos futuros.
摘要
尽管人们一再呼吁要采取城市保护行动, 然而却常常对相关提案表示诧异或怀疑。在政策制定、实践行动和公众心理中仍存在一种普遍的认识, 即城市环境虽然有助于人们亲近自然并提供生态系统服务, 但其保护价值微乎其微。我们认为, 这种忽视城市环境保护价值的倾向来源于对本地物种在城市和乡镇间续存能力的误解, 而这反过来又阻碍了有效的保护行动。然而, 最近的科学证据表明这些种种假设并不总是成立。虽然通常情况下增加生境斑块的大小、提高其质量和连接度可以提高物种续存的可能性, 但反过来看, 并不是说退化或碎片化的小面积生境在城市环境中就毫无价值。鉴于以上发现, 我们建议更新这些指导和激励研究者、实践者和决策者采取城市环境保护行动的信息, 应考虑小尺度空间的保护、认识非传统生境、尝试创新性解决方案, 并利用科学知识来减少未来城市发展带来的影响。 【翻译: 胡怡思; 审校: 聂永刚】
Article impact statement: Conserving native biodiversity is both important and achievable in urban environments.
Riparian zones are critical for biodiversity but have suffered widespread degradation and therefore are key targets for ecological restoration. In urban contexts, restoring riparian ecosystems can ...have widespread benefits but these efforts are often limited by needs to mitigate flood risks and by a lack of long-term monitoring to evaluate efficacy, presenting important challenges for managers. To evaluate restoration potential in urban riparian systems, we studied responses of a diverse Sonoran Desert lizard community to combined flood control and habitat restoration efforts along a major river course and tributary drainage over 15 years in urban Tucson, Arizona. We used a before/after-control/impact design and linear mixed-effect models to estimate species responses to treatments that included bank stabilization and detention basin construction for flood and erosion control combined with passive water harvesting, native vegetation planting and seeding, and targeted creation of microhabitats. Despite marked declines of relative abundances and richness at treated sites immediately following construction, overall impacts were mostly positive or neutral, and negative for just one of six focal species. Most species recovered to pre-treatment levels of abundance within 2–3 years, but recovery dynamics varied with differences in life history traits and habitat use among species. In general, widely-moving, faster-maturing terrestrial species recovered more quickly and responded most positively to restoration, whereas more arboreal species with longer generation times and smaller home ranges took longer to benefit from restoration treatments. Few studies assess impacts of paired urban flood control and habitat restoration on wildlife, and our findings suggest management of urban riparian systems can provide simultaneous benefits to humans and wildlife. Future efforts may be improved by preserving and fostering more heterogeneous cover including key resources such as mature trees, as well as potentially translocating animals into restored but disconnected patches of habitat in urbanized landscapes.
•Management had mostly positive or neutral impacts on lizard communities.•Restoring native vegetation in tandem with microhabitat enhancement fostered recovery.•Terrestrial, widely-moving and fast-reproducing species recovered relatively quickly.•Arboreal, slow-reproducing species with restricted home ranges recovered more slowly.•Negative overall responses of one species suggest tradeoffs of habitat alteration.
Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) are an important pathway and governance system for area-based conservation led by Indigenous Peoples. While IPCAs have been established across rural ...and northern regions of Canada, they have received little attention in urbanized landscapes, even though all of Canada’s urban areas coincide with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis territory (and thereby underlying Indigenous jurisdiction) and the majority of Indigenous Peoples in the country live in urban centers. Canada’s federal government is in the process of establishing six new urban national parks and has committed to working with local Indigenous governments and organizations in parks planning. This study examined the potential for strengthening Indigenous participation in urban parks planning, governance, and management, including the establishment of new urban Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (UIPCAs). The results of spatial analyses of urban Indigenous territory, a review of relevant domestic and international policy and interviews with local Indigenous conservation leaders illuminate the potential for new forms of urban conservation governance that are grounded in Indigenous rights and responsibilities and reflective of Indigenous knowledge systems and biocultural priorities. However, it remains to be seen how urban Indigenous-led conservation, such as UIPCAs, can fit and operate within proposed government urban conservation initiatives, such as Canada’s Urban National Parks Program, which do not currently foreground Indigenous-led conservation in the governance of urban green space.
This paper focuses on the dramatic transformation of the inherited historical urban and architectural characteristics of the city of Al-Najaf in Iraq, seeking new ways of seeing the possibilities of ...preserving and revitalizing the historical center of the city.
In addition to being one of the most sacred centers for Shia Muslims, Al-Najaf has a rich cultural and architectural heritage. Its architectural characteristics and urban structure not only reflect the history of the city but also stand as evidence of the most important junctures in Islamic history: the martyrdom of Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib, who is a central Islamic spiritual personality and the second most important figure after the Prophet Muhammad. Since its establishment in 750 AD, the formation of Al-Najaf has never separated from its sociopolitical context and Islamic principles, particularly Shia Muslims’ beliefs.
Today, the city is a destination for more than million Shia Muslim pilgrims each year, and the number is rapidly increasing. However, as the city continues to develop, its architecture and unique urban structure transform dramatically. The cultural and architectural heritage of the city is seriously threatened. Several factors played a crucial role in the formation and the transformation of the city's specific architectural and urban structures. The most influential factors were mainly related to religion, environment, and politics. This paper introduces the main forces behind the transformation of the deep organizational structures of the architecture and urban fabric in Al-Najaf. The question of whether it is still possible to protect and preserve the remaining parts and revitalize the Old City center is also examined. The goal is to identify the major preservation issues and provide possible insights based on successful preservation experiences that address similar issues in different contexts.
This paper aimed to discuss urban conservation challenges along the axes of two streets in the neighborhood of Yenikap leading towards Kumkap . The Yenikap area of the historic peninsula of Istanbul ...is known to have been inhabited since prehistoric times, and it was the site of an important late antiquity port. Many cultural assets, including monuments from a number of periods and nineteenth century houses, remain in the area, but jarring changes have occurred due to newly built constructions, town planning decisions, and the development of public transport. Before any proposal for future area conservation activities, the current state of conservation was inspected through onsite analyses conducted along Pa azade, Imrahor Hamam , and Sepetçi Selim streets. By analyzing the pressures affecting the historical peninsula, the challenges in the conservation effort of the study area were determined, followed by some proposals for its enhancement and general conservation.
The paper stems from the studio of Urban Preservation-Conservation for Graduate Studies Programme, which was run between February and June 2019 under the coordination of the authors. Highlighting the value of the cultural heritage and historic importance of the area, revitalization to preserve the urban character was suggested. The current state of conservation was investigated through recent onsite analyses, one of the most important tasks in understanding the integrity and authenticity of the area.
Today, for the first time in human history, more than half of the world's population lives in cities. According to UN-Habitat, within two decades, five billion people will live in cities. ...Coincidentally, within the field of cultural heritage conservation, increasing international interest and attention over the past two decades has been focused on urban areas. This is timely because pressure for economic development and for the prioritising of engagement with the global economy has accompanied rapid urbanisation. In many societies, pressures for economic development have privileged modernisation efforts leading to the loss of traditional communities. Accompanying this has been a concentration in the field of urban conservation on famous buildings and monuments rather than seeing cities as communities of people with values and belief systems that are reflected in the city's overall setting: its cultural landscape. This paper explores alternative ways of seeing cities particularly through the Historic Urban Landscape paradigm.
Abstract
The extent to which native species utilize urban environments depends on species responses to multiple threatening processes. Here, we aimed to quantify changes in bird communities in ...response to changing habitat structure, invasive species and aggressive native species. We conducted surveys in two independently invaded regions with similar patterns of urban development. The study regions were New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland (QLD), Australia. We observed 127 species in NSW and 144 species in QLD. Most species (NSW 83 and QLD 84) are urban adapters making use of some or all urban sub-environments. Urban avoiders, species only found in remnant vegetation, were the second largest group (urban avoiders: NSW 23 and QLD 31). We found the lowest richness in the most urban sites (urban exploiters: NSW 10 and QLD 15). Using generalized linear mixed models, we found a non-significant relationship between species richness and the abundance of aggressive species like the common myna and noisy miners, Manorina melanocephala, but a significant positive correlation with the percentage of shrub cover at a site. As there is a gradual loss of species with increasing urbanization, retaining higher complexity in vegetation structure in urban areas will support large numbers of species and could help mitigate the potential impacts of aggressive urban-adapted species and habitat loss.
This paper aims to provide a comprehensive perspective to heritage economics, and the contribution of that field to urban conservation. Cultural economics, and in particular heritage economics, is ...often envisioned as a margin discipline to help conservation specialists in assessing additional outcomes and benefits to the expected cultural values from preserving heritage. This paper is built on the conservation paradigm (consistent with the urban agenda in a sustainable context) which considers economics as primary goal of conservation, on the basis that sustainable conservation projects are better legitimized when they match economic, social, and environmental objectives. The scope of this paper is tangible (built heritage) and intangible heritage. The approach is the value chain of all activities directly and indirectly related to the conservation of cultural heritage, namely: the creation of value, conservation and co-production of value, dissemination, and transmission/fruition & engagement.
•Tangible and intangible heritage value chain encompasses multiple stakeholders, and a wide range of consumer-oriented activities.•Heritage economics has become mainstream. In tandem, the world realizes how sustainability, circularity, recycling, re-use are indispensable.•Heritage economics offers a new perspective to conservation, a condition to make conservation the most efficient process.
Domestic cats (Felis catus) have contributed to the extinction of indigenous species worldwide, but impacts in Africa are unstudied. We compare prey returned home from three questionnaire surveys ...(2009, 2010 and 2013/14) in Cape Town, South Africa, with footage from some of the same cats wearing animal-borne video cameras (KittyCams), to assess differences in actual predation vs. returns. Cape Town borders Table Mountain National Park (TMNP), so cats may prey on animals in a protected area. Urban edge (UE) and deep urban cats (DU) did not differ in predation rates, but the suite of species killed differed significantly. KittyCams revealed that most predation was nocturnal, and only 18% of prey recorded on video were returned home, thus cats kill 5.56 times more animals (averaged across all taxa) than returns data suggest. Reptiles constituted 50% of prey, but only 17% of returns; mammals constituted 24% of prey, but 54% of returns. Non-native species represented only 6% and 17% of animals killed by UE and DU cats, respectively, pointing to a high cost of cat predation for native fauna. Applying a correction factor of 5.56, the average domestic cat in Cape Town kills c. 90 (95% CI = 59, 123), animals.year−1. Thus, the approximately 300 000 domestic cats in Cape Town kill c. 27.5 million animals.year−1, and TMNP is likely to lose c. 203 500 animals to UE cats annually from within its boundaries. The scale of this predation necessitates conservation options to minimise impacts of cats on wildlife, particularly near protected areas.
Display omitted
•Domestic cat prey returns were compared to videoed kills for the first time in Africa.•82% of prey were not returned home and taxa returned differed from videoed kills.•The average Cape Town domestic cat killed between 59 and 123 animals per year.•Deep urban cats killed at the same rate, but different species to urban edge cats.•City cats kill c. 27.5 million prey.year−1 including 203 000 from Table Mountain.
PDF
