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https://theconversation.com/urban-patchwork-is-losing-its-green-making-our-cities-and-all-who-live-in-them-vulnerable-187161>
"One delight of flying is seeing our familiar landscapes in a new way from
above. At low altitude most of us know where things are, but as we ascend it
becomes difficult to determine the local details, and we begin to see a bigger
picture. Sometimes this bigger picture can be scary.
After nearly three years of being unable to fly I have had a couple of recent
opportunities to take to the air. My first observation was that in many
once-leafy suburbs the green tinge is disappearing under a tsunami of
development. You can see this new development on the fringes of towns and
cities, as well as redevelopment and infill in the older places. Familiar rows
of roadside trees and large old trees that were once suburban landmarks have
gone.
As you look from above, it comes as no surprise that the latest
State of the
Environment report delivered damning findings this week. Vegetation cover in
cities is diminishing. So too are the wildlife corridors that once connected
now-isolated remnant communities of plants and animals.
Most of you will have heard people describing the view we get from above as
being like a patchwork quilt of different colours and land uses, or perhaps
like an Indigenous painting that gives us a bird’s eye view of the world below.
It shows us a jigsaw puzzle of the disturbed and fragmented environments in
which we live.
However, as we soar higher we are reminded that there is only one space, that
it is all connected. Each piece of the jigsaw has a place in the big picture."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
