News
- An Urban Jungle for the 21st Century:: An interesting article from the New York Times, this piece features a 10-year development plan in Singapore which aims to go from “a garden city” to a “city in a garden” which means increasing the greenery and biodiversity of plants and wildlife around the city.
- Cities could be the key to saving pollinating insects:: An interesting study featured by BBC News, which is about a project aiming to document pollinators Britain-wide. They are surveying in 12 cities and including urban areas as well as agriculture and nature reserves.
- Welcome to synurbia:: This BBC blog post defines this interesting term and idea which means wild animals that live and near with humans and even adapt to human settlements.
- The search is one for great wildlife photos:: This story features a great project in Vancouver by the BC SPCA which is a photo contest for an upcoming children’s book City Critters: Living Wild in the Urban Jungle.
- In Pursuit of Urban Nature: Hiking Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace:: This interesting blog post from The Evolving Critic, the author sought to visit the entire Emerald Necklace, an interconnected network of green space in Boston, in a single day to visit the urban nature found there.
- Work begins on Eco-Link @BKE:: Another story out of Singapore, this one features a wildlife corridor aimed to connect two large wildlife preserves over a highway, the first in Southeast Asia.
- Fur, Fins and Feathers: New Bedford couple explores the beauty of bugs:: This is a great article about a couple who have devoted their yard to habitat, particularly for insects of which they have a keen interest in their lifecycles.
- City taking stormwater ponds back to nature:: This article is interesting not so much in that the city of Edmonton is transforming stormwater ponds from sterile holding ponds to more natural wetlands, but that it takes cities so long to recognize the benefits of natural ecosystems.
- Now THIS is Recycling: Jumping Spiders Using Dragonfly Exuviae:: A fascinating post from the Northwest Dragonflier blog which features a little known example of jumping spiders using the discarded skins of dragonfly nymphs as shelter. It goes to show how much we still have to learn from nature and how much everything is connected.
- Meet the hip urban birdwatchers:: An interesting article about a trend in birdwatching where more people are focusing on urban areas such as David Lindo who blogs as the ‘Urban Birder’ and has a new book out on the subject.
Resources
- Liveable Cities Forum: Designing Biodiversity Friendly Communities:: This conference, which is happening this week is an “international conference on local biodiversity conservation and management practices.” It’s exciting to see a conference which addresses urban biodiversity and hopefully they’ll make some of the conference material available on their website.
- Habitat Corridors Help Preserve Wildlife in the Midst of Human Society:: This podcast from the Ecological Society of America features “Ph.D. research at the University of Washington focuses on habitat corridors and the impacts of habitat fragmentation on ecosystems.”
- Vacant to Vibrant: A guide for revitalizing vacant lots in your neighborhood:: This PDF document from the city of Pittsburgh offers an interesting menu of ideas on how to improve vacant lots into spaces for community gardens, community expression, recreation or green infrastructure. Thanks to the Local Ecologist for the link.
- Lepidoptera Wing Pattern Identification System:: An interesting project from Oregon State University which aims to “develop an online biological identification system using a method based on signature pattern matching.”
- Rain Gardens: helping nature in your own front yard:: This brilliant model from the University of Nebraska Extension shows an interactive display of how rain gardens work in both elevation and profile views.
- The Killdeer:: This profile from the Urban Wildlife Guide features a common urban bird which can be found in parking lots, parks, golf courses and even on roofs.
Design
- Urban Aeries / PURCH; Now Available:: This fascinating project is profiled on the Animal Architecture blog. PURCH stands for Positioned Urban Roosts for Civic Habitation and is an “exercise in engaging other alternate-architects (specifically birds here) in the production of co-species habitations.”
- 10 Nature Inspired Urban Renewal Designs:: A great collection of projects which features The High Line, the Ford factory green roof, a Bird and Butterfly Garden and other interesting urban greening projects.
- Work gets under way on first monastery to be built in Liverpool in more than 100 years:: Monasteries are fascinating landscapes and this brand new one in Liverpool is including a wildflower meadow, wildlife pond and over 1,500 trees.
- Calm retreat for mourners:: This community cemetery is less like a cemetery, it has no grave markers, and more like a place of reflection. This ‘cemetery for the living’ features natural materials including some found on site and creates habitat for frogs, birds and butterflies.
- ‘Parkmobiles’ bring taste of nature to urban San Francisco:: These new moving parks will travel around San Francisco bringing different themed plantings to different neighborhoods which lack green space.
- Minnesota Landscape Architects to install ‘floating islands’ in impaired Minneapolis lake:: As part of Landscape Architecture awareness day, landscape architects in Minnesota designed and installed several floating island in an attempt to improve water quality and provide wildlife habitat.
Thanks for the shout-out.