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Cities key to conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity |
Cities are key to biodiversity, shows new online tool for urban sustainability. Albaeco one of the organisations behind the new website.
The world is turning increasingly urban with more than five billion people projected to live in cities by 2030. No wonder then that the role of cities in maintaining biodiversity for functional ecosystems is becoming an increasingly important topic on the global agenda.
In conjunction with the launch of the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, Albaeco and partners launched Urban Planet, an online tool for sustainable urban development. Coinciding with the International Biodiversity Day, 22 May, an updated version has been launched with a number of interactive graphics illustrating the links between urban areas and biodiversity.
It shows how a remarkable amount of native species diversity exist in and around large cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Chicago, Istanbul, Singapore, Cape Town and Stockholm. Today 25 percent of the world’s protected areas are within 17 km of an urban area. In 10 years this is projected to shrink to 15 km making it a hot topic for future urban planning and development.
Urbanization not just a threat
However, increased urbanization can also represent an opportunity for change. Increasingly growing cities are also hubs for knowledge, innovations and human and financial resources, making them crucial for solving global environmental problems.
The new graphics on the Urban Planet website display several dimensions of urbanization and biodiversity, including Cities and Biodiversity Hotspots, Cities and protected areas and Cities and global forest cover change.
Urban Planet is a joint project of Albaeco, Stockholm Resilience Centre and the Swedish International Centre of Education for Sustainable Development (SWEDESD).
More at:
http://www.urbanplanetatlas.org/
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