Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Children feeding rock pigeons in Costa Rica
been called “environmental amnesia”—literally, we forget about our natural
world. As we forget, we also devalue nature and lose a will to conserve it. At
best, we come to accept lowered environmental quality as the new norm—
shifting baselines by which we gauge further change. To remember what bio-
diversity is and why it is important, we must conserve nature close to where
we live and work as well as develop distant reserves. The apparent contradic-
tion that global conservation of biological diversity may hinge on an apprecia-
tion for nature in our built world has been dubbed “the Pigeon Paradox”—that
is to say, we might have to learn to love “rats with wings” and other city dwell-
ers to help us develop a conservation ethic that extends beyond, but also in-
cludes, the city.
Including the urban ecosystem, and within it subirdia, in a broad conser-
vation strategy can cure environmental amnesia. The city is the place where
 
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