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Nature-Inclusive Cities: Concepts and Considerations

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Nature Driven Urbanism

Part of the book series: Contemporary Urban Design Thinking ((CUDT))

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Abstract

The world is currently experiencing its sixth great extinction event (Ceballos et al., Sci Adv 1(5):1, 2015). The Holocene extinction, also known as the Anthropocene extinction, is affecting nearly all of the planet’s flora and fauna species, with the current rate of extinction, estimated at between 100 (Ceballos and Ehrlich, Science 360(6393):1080, 2018) and 1000 (Pimm et al., Science 344(6187), 2014) times higher than natural background rates. The loss of species from ecological communities, defaunation, is primarily driven by human activity (Dirzo et al., Science 345(6195):401–406, 2014). It is estimated that more than 60% of all wildlife has been lost in the last 40 years, and that by 2020 68% will have been lost (WWF, Living planet report – 2018: aiming higher. World Wildlife Fund, Gland, 2018). There are many drivers of this defaunation; from overexploitation to invasive species and pollution (Hoffmann et al., Science 330(6010):1503–1509, 2010). However, by far the greatest cause is habitat destruction and fragmentation (IUCN, The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2018-2, International Union for Conservation of nature, viewed 15 February 2019, http://www.iucnredlist.org, 2018). Changes in land use from those that naturally formed in response to local geography, geology and climate to those which serve human populations is resulting in a global decrease in biodiversity. Expanding urban areas consequently leads to increased agriculture, rangelands, forestry and mining to service the needs of the growing population (Ripple et al., Bioscience 67(12):1026–1028, 2017). This inherently means that built environment design professionals are directly complicit in the greatest extinction in human history.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Urban Refugia, Sydney, Australia

    Stewart Monti

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  1. Stewart Monti
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Correspondence to Stewart Monti .

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  1. Research Centre for the Built Environment NoorderRuimte, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, The Netherlands, Citta Ideale, Office for Adaptive Planning, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Rob Roggema

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Monti, S. (2020). Nature-Inclusive Cities: Concepts and Considerations. In: Roggema, R. (eds) Nature Driven Urbanism. Contemporary Urban Design Thinking. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26717-9_11

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