An interesting article by journalist Richard Conniff arguing that it might be increasingly hard to set aside large protected landscapes for creatures other than ourselves..............He posits that some Environmentalists have given up hope of what biologist E.O.Wilson would like to see happen-----save half of the worlds remaining wild landscapes as bioreserves..............Instead of "Half-Earth, these other enviros feel that we must find ways to keep the land that us human animals occupy as "friendly" as possible for other animals to live on.....................I am all for keeping your property in native plants(whiuch I do) and encouraging "critters" to come and go as they would like...............I am all for highway medians to be planted in wildflowers.................However, these noble efforts are not going to optimize biodiversity.............The "generalists", the creatures that can occupy the small edges will persist on some level on these "land patches"................However, the truly "Wild America" and "Wild World" that many of us hope can still become a reality will only be accomplished on the local level through Land Trust purchases and easements............Federal Governments in developed Countries like the USA are no longer going to create 500 square mile preserves,,,,,,,,,,,,There are too many other "people needs" that the Feds will need to focus on with human populations going from 7 to a projected 9 billion by AD 2100........... ,,,,,It will be up to organizations like the OPEN SPACE INSTITUTE, THE NATURE CONSERVANCY, RESTORE THE NORTH WOODS, YELLOWSTONE TO YUKON, ALGONQUINS TO THE ADIRONDACKS AND HUNDREDS OF OTHER REGIONAL AND LOCAL LAND SAVING ORGANIZATIONS TO PATCH TOGETHER LARGE, INTERCONNECTED LANDSCAPES THAT CAN SUPPORT THE BIGGEST AND THE SMALLEST OF OUR FAUNA AND FLORA

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https://yale.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b70b711355cbb09eb9f5e5702&id=ef394be144&e=e3538c514f

Habitat on the Edges: Making Room for Wildlife in an Urbanized World

Efforts to protect biodiversity are now focusing less on preserving pristine areas and more on finding room for wildlife on the margins of human development. As urban areas keep expanding, it is increasingly the only way to allow species to survive. 

BY RICHARD CONNIFF • JANUARY 3, 2018

For conservationists, protecting biodiversity has in recent years become much less about securing new protected areas in pristine habitat and more about making room for wildlife on the margins of our own urbanized existence.  Conservation now often means modifying human landscapes to do double-duty as wildlife habitat — or, more accurately, to continue functioning for wildlife even as humans colonize them for their homes, highways, and farms.  There is simply no place else for animals to live.

The ambition to create new protected areas still persists, of course.  National parks, wildlife refuges, and other protected areas remain essential, especially for species that do not adapt well to human-dominated landscapes. The 168 signatory nations to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have acknowledged as much, at least on paper, committing to extend protected area coverage to 17 percent of their land area by 2020. But getting there has proved difficult. Coverage by national parks and other terrestrial protected areas has remained stuck for the past few years at about 15 percent worldwide, well short of CBD commitments, much less E.O. Wilson’s grander vision of “half-Earth” set aside for nature.

Meanwhile, though, work to improve buffer zones around parks, and to establish corridors on the land between existing protected areas, has flourished. For instance:  

• Just since 2000, private land area protected under conservation easements in the United States has more than doubled, from 23 million to 56 million acres, according to the Land Trust Alliance — though those easements tend to impose fewer restrictions on landowners than in the past.
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• Corridor protection on the grand scale has achieved remarkable results, notably with the 2,000-mile long Yellowstone-to-Yukon Conservation Initiative. It aims to connect protected areas and to ensure safe passage for elk, grizzly bears, and other wildlife across 500,000 square miles of largely shared habitat, both public and privately owned. At the same time, research by Nick Haddad, a conservation biologist at the University of Michigan’s W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, has demonstrated substantial improvements in biodiversity from corridors as little as 25 yards in width, well within the range, he says, of “what’s reasonable in urban landscapes.”  Indeed, a new study from northern Botswana has found that elephants traveling from Chobe National Park to the nearby Chobe River will use corridors as small as 10 feet wide to traverse newly urbanized areas.

Urban areas now increasingly recognize that it’s cheaper to protect clean water by buying up natural habitat both within their own borders and at the source, instead of installing expensive technology to purify it after the fact.  It’s not just about New York City purchasing huge chunks of the Catskills. North Carolina’s Clean Water Management Trust Fund, for instance, has also protected 500,000 acres of watershed and riverside habitat over the past 20 years — with enormous incidental benefits for wildlife.