Thursday 11th November 2021
Greening our cities will make them better places both for humans and other living beings, flora and fauna. And it will address the climate crisis reducing our dependency of carbon polluting structures and carbon polluting lifestyle choices.
“Recent studies have highlighted the importance of boosting green urban areas and connecting fragments of green space with ecological corridors to improve biodiversity and animal species dispersal within the urban landscape. If adequately designed, green corridors can improve urban ventilation, allowing for cooler air from outside to penetrate into the more densely built areas, and reducing thus the urban heat island effect. Urban green areas can also have positive effects for human health and climate change adaptation. The capacity of vegetation to retain water is an important flood prevention feature that can reduce peak discharges..
[Where] patches of urban woodlands are generally separated from each other, [this] affects the ability of many woodland species to disperse, or move among different locations with similar habitats. Ecological corridors or connections between urban woodlands, gardens or other green spaces are recognised as a way to limit the negative effects of fragmentation.”
This concept is being developed in London, where there are already many parks and green corridors – the latter often following the course of the many small tributaries to the Thames.
In July 2019 London because the world’s first National Urban Park. 45% of the city is green space which includes 3000 parks, 30,000 allotments, two national nature reserves a s 142 local nature reserves, 36 sites of special scientific interest and is home to about 13,000 different species of wildlife. London’s overall tree cover amounts to 21% sufficient for it to be the world’s largest urban forest! (The UN definition of a forest is anywhere with at least a 20% cover of trees.)
The Green Tau 