Most people see cities as the antithesis of nature, but Stefan Theil notes that Cities Are the New Jungles:
As they take a closer look, however, biologists in the nascent science of “urban ecology” are finding that cities are not just important habitats, but veritable hot spots of animal and plant life. “You can take any big city and find more species, more diverse habitats than in just about any national park or nature reserve,” says Josef Reichholf, professor of ornithology at Munich’s Technical University. Both in animal numbers as well as species diversity, he says, cities beat the countryside hands down.Berlin, one of the best-studied cases, is home to two thirds of the 280 bird species existing in Germany, including peregrine falcons and ospreys — raptors that have disappeared from much of the country. What’s more, biologists say, urban biodiversity seems to be on the rise — as our cities become cleaner, suburbs grow greener, and more and more species learn to adapt. These findings are challenging an old piece of orthodoxy — that urbanization is the planet’s biggest environmental threat. On the contrary, it’s in the open country that plants and animals have seen the most rapid decline. The main culprit, biologists say: a highly efficient but species-killing agriculture, now spreading from the developed world to southern countries like Brazil.
Updated link: The New Jungles by Stefan Theil.