By Pop X, Center for Biological Diversity, October 19, 2012
As the world's population grows, so does the human
footprint. A new study predicts that in less than 20 years,
urbanized areas on the planet will expand by 463,000 square miles -- that's
nearly three times the size of California. Or, imagined another way, that's
like adding 20,000 football fields of paved-over urban jungle every day.
It will be, as one researcher calls it, "an
unprecedented era of urban expansion and city-building." Much of that's
going to happen in Asia, especially China, but not all. The researchers at
Yale, Texas A&M and Boston University tell us that in North America, where
nearly 8 out of 10 people live in a cityscape, urban land will nearly double —
to 96,000 square miles -- by 2030. All of that comes with the construction of
roads, buildings, power plants, parking lots and housing subdivisions. It's a
daunting image of nature paved over, but, the researchers say, it can be -- and
should be -- seen as an opportunity to do development with minimal harm.
"Given the long life and near irreversibility of
infrastructure investments, it will be critical for current
urbanization-related policies to consider their long impacts," said Karen
Seto, lead author of the study and an assistant professor at Yale. "We
have a huge opportunity to shape how cities develop and their environmental
impacts."
There's another important point in that same study: The more homes we build for
ourselves, the more homes we destroy for wildlife. The researchers project that
the urban growth expected by 2030 will "encroach on or destroy"
habitat for 139 amphibians, 41 mammals and 25 birds considered endangered by
the International Union for Conservation of Nature. That estimate seems
perilously low to us, but every species we lose forever amounts to a collective
tragedy.
"It's not all about carbon footprint, which is what
mayors and planners typically think about now, but we need to consider how
urban expansion will have implications for other, nonhuman species and the
value of these species for present and future generations," said Burak
Guneralp, one of the researchers at Texas A&M.
That's been a driving factor in our work here at the
Center for Biological Diversity. Just this week, a California judge on one of
our lawsuits confirmed that the proposed Newhall Ranch
project in Los Angeles County, which would create a new town of 60,000 people
on the banks for the struggling Santa Clara River, violated laws that protect
endangered species. And earlier this year, we petitioned to protect 53 amphibians
and reptiles
around the country, many of which are threatened by urban expansion driven by
the growth of our human population. One of the most important steps that can be
taken is securing protected "critical habitat" for these species, a
designation helps stem the replacement, by strip malls and subdivisions, of the
few remaining homes these vanishing plants and animals have. A good example:
More than 838,000 acres of critical habitat were recently
proposed for the jaguar in the Southwest, a result we've been fighting to
achieve for more than a decade.
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