Walking along the Colorado River behind old factories on the east side of Austin, Texas, you might forget that this is one of the fastest growing cities in America. The riparian corridor below downtown is a rare zone of urban biodiversity. Herons and herons catch fish in the tailrace. Owls, coyotes, hawks, deer, and even wasabi cats live in the woods within earshot of toll roads and airport flight paths. As Texas’ long, hot summers cool into the fall, ospreys begin to arrive, and in winter, bald eagles arrive.
It’s heartening to see so much nature in a big city. But it also shows how much the area is threatened by development pressures, from nearby pecan fields being cleared to make space for new apartments and offices, to the recently built giant Tesla megafactory downstream. If you knew what was going on, you would be filled with a sense of unexpected loss. When it comes to choosing between more housing and jobs for humans and space for other species, humans always win. Maybe that’s the way it should be. But what if it didn’t have to be a zero-sum game?
On a shrinking planet, habitat becomes increasingly scarce for us and our non-human neighbors. Affordable housing is a regional issue in the US, as median prices have risen nearly 50% since 2020, rising twice as fast as wages, and homelessness reached record levels It has expanded to become a major national problem. Political leaders are talking about opening up public land for new housing. Broadcasting time for the clear picture of the biodiversity crisis is getting shorter. The World Wildlife Fund recently estimated that global wildlife populations have plummeted by 73% since 1970. The link between these two crises remains largely unexplored.
Increasing the supply of human housing does not necessarily reduce wildlife habitat. In fact, concentration of human populations in urban areas is an important strategy to combat habitat loss. But the link between our own development and devouring the world is inevitable. The appetite of a growing and increasingly wealthy human race has created an almost insatiable desire to produce more food and necessities, and a powerful incentive to convert undeveloped areas into farmland, pasture, and woodland. is producing. The link between urban consumption and habitat destruction, knowing which direction the supply chain goes, shows that the hemispheric distribution of wildlife population declines (39% in the US and Canada, but alarming in Latin America) This is especially clear when looking at the percentage (95%).
Our short-sightedness when it comes to trade-offs between our lives and non-human lives is profound. It’s built into language, as when we refer to undeveloped land as “vacant land,” “vacant land,” or even “waste.” It is also embedded in our legal and economic systems, leaving us with few tools for valuing nature other than what humans own or consume. This partly reflects the richer world in which they evolved as bipedal hunters and gatherers out of Africa. A history of seemingly limitless resources, made even more abundant by the control of fire and the breeding of plants and animals for which we feed, has taught us how much our health and prosperity depend on the natural ecosystems that surround us. I was able to ignore it. Living in a city isolated from nature is not helpful.
There are signs that we are recognizing this dangerous imbalance and developing new ways to address it. The emerging field of ecosystem services considers the contribution of wild nature to human well-being through an economic prism, with the corresponding decline in predators such as wolves and scavengers such as vultures, for example. It shows how they are directly linked to ecosystem services. The loss of human life and property that these animals could have prevented by decimating the populations of deer and cattle that can be killed in car accidents or spread disease from uneaten carcasses. loss.
Public awareness of the biodiversity crisis is spreading through the changes we see around us, especially for those of us who have lived long enough to wonder why there are so many fewer insects in summer than when we were children. . And in some regions, meaningful action is being taken to link biodiversity health and human development to the benefit of both.
In early 2024, England announced final regulations introducing a national requirement for significant new developments to demonstrate a net 10% increase in biodiversity for on-site or off-site projects after project completion. That the then Conservative government could impose such restrictions on property rights may reflect Britain’s unique yearning for a memorable green country, but this could happen. It’s a promising indicator of change.
Like the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wetlands Program, there are similar pieces of policy in this country, many of which are rewilding blighted corners of cities, from the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island to the Barona Swamp in West Los Angeles. Successful efforts have been made. If new housing is needed, with a real effort to share our habitat with other life, how much the natural qualities of the land we build on can be restored with modest investments and simple strategies. You’ll know right away if you can do it. Nature is good at healing itself if we give it space to heal itself.
Here in Texas, as in many other parts of the country, the extinction of indigenous species is relatively recent. Agriculture and ranching were not introduced in earnest until the 1820s. Ninety-nine percent of the Blackland prairie that once stretched from Dallas to San Antonio has since been buried under plows and paving, but its remnants still appear in the corners every spring. There is a constant debate in Texas communities over the need to make space for humans and the need to protect wild nature. After pandemic lockdowns reawakened the “nature heals” mentality, cities like Austin began taking steps to use economic growth as a driver to rewild the future. The balance may still be out of whack, like a new luxury skyscraper paying its way to a lush urban stream, or a restored riparian zone hidden behind a monolithic Tesla factory. , a promising start that offers a glimpse into a deeper issue. As a result, countries like the UK are required to meet biodiversity targets.
On a global scale, projects such as the restoration of the Isar River in Munich and the daylighting of the Cheonggyecheon Stream in Seoul demonstrate the potential for revitalization through rewilding of metropolitan centers. A combination of stronger development and environmental impact standards can simultaneously address the housing and biodiversity crises and provide habitat for all. And by experiencing the richness of life in a more biodiverse environment ourselves, we should be able to better manage the future of our planet and a happier future.
Christopher Brown is a novelist, lawyer, and author of A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places.
