Part of the "De-Activated City" series.
As cities around the world mandate lockdowns, quarantine and social distancing, media highlighted examples of animals frolicking through deserted cities. In Nara, Japan, deer were filmed in streets and subway stations. Raccoons were spotted on the beach in an emptied San Felipe, Panama. Boars have made a strong showing in Rome, Berlin, Haifa and in made other cities. Dolphins appeared along the canals of Venice and in the Bosporus in Istanbul.
Normally, animals live in parts of our cities that are underused or ignored. Often an unseen presence, like ghosts – we prefer to avoid one another in everyday life. In the last fifty years human activities have caused the loss of more than two-thirds of the world’s wildlife population, according to a new report from the World Wildlife Fund, stating that their “findings are clear” and “our relationship with nature is broken”. More and more non-human species are forced to adapt to live in urban environment in order to survive. Cities are now extreme habitats; polluted and noisy, with artificial light and replete with concrete. Because the environment is so alien, some subspecies disappear, while others adapt to their new conditions.
Can we preserve nature by looking forward? What kind of world do we need to build for another kind of world to emerge? How should we balance different, potentially conflicting, values such as nature protection, individual animal welfare, and human safety? Our manifesto is a set of guidelines on how urban design may harness the power to create an environment for other species to thrive:
– Welcome the non-human: Creatures once inhabited the natural land before we built cities on it. Now, some have adapted to reside alongside humans in urban settings; being generous with them is the first step towards encouraging more non-human urban life. Wildlife-vehicle collisions, property damage, zoonotic disease transmission, and physical attacks to people or their pets have negative consequences for both people and wildlife. In order to allow individuals to see value and benefits of wildlife and understanding the animal behaviour it is important to promote specific community management programmes that create opportunities for shared responsibilities amongst citizens.
– Let it grow: Green infrastructure in cities, including green roofs, wetlands, and tree-lined streets provide valuable passages, stepping-stones, low speed areas, and refuges for wildlife to avoid heightened vulnerability. The manifesto calls for allowing such green spaces assemble naturally from species growing abundantly elsewhere in the city. This would entail not planting anything, perhaps not even adding soil, rather leaving any available spot empty and letting the urban ecosystem colonize it.
– Design for ecological niches: Located everywhere in the city, in gutters, roadside and in abandoned areas, communities of plants are co-evolving with each other alongside microorganisms in the soil and air. These in turn mix with the urban environment amplified by conditions such as the heat island, the patchiness of soil and heavy metal pollution. Even the smallest plant is able to attract little creatures and create a unique ecosystem if left undisturbed early in the design process.
– Minimize over-maintained areas: Data collected over 15 years of study in North America and Europe was analysed to find strong evidence linking increased mowing intensity of urban lawns (including public spaces such as parks; roundabouts and roadsides) with reduced diversity of plants and invertebrates. Reduction of lawn mowing can boost wildlife, increase pollinators and reduce pests and weed that cause allergies.
– Incorporate snags and felled wood: Snags, large, felled logs, and big decaying trees provide food and shelter to more than 40% of wildlife species. They provide important structures for cavity-dependent birds and small mammals, food sources for woodpeckers and other foragers, and slowly release nutrients into the ecosystem through decomposition. Decaying trees can be cut and placed near parks or green areas – thus sustaining new ecosystems.
– Provide water for wildlife beyond drinking: Fountains and artificial ponds help amphibians (such as frogs and toads) use the water for shelter and breeding grounds. Butterflies get valuable minerals and salts from slightly muddy water, and birds use it for bathing to remove parasites from their feathers.
