Wilding cities for biodiversity and people: a transdisciplinary framework

Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2024 Mar 21. doi: 10.1111/brv.13076. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTAccelerating urbanisation and associated lifestyle changes result in loss of biodiversity and diminished wellbeing of people through fewer direct interactions and experiences with nature. In this review, we propose the notion of urban wilding (the promotion of autonomous ecological processes that are independent of historical land-use conditions, with minimal direct human maintenance and planting interventions) and investigate its propensity to improve biodiversity and people-nature connections in cities. Through a large interdisciplinary synthesis, we explore the ecological mechanisms through which urban wilding can promote biodiversity in cities, investigate the attitudes and relations of city dwellers towards urban wild spaces, and discuss the integration of urban wilding into the fabric of cities and its governance. We show that favouring assembly spontaneity by reducing planting interventions, and functional spontaneity by limiting maintenance practices, can promote plant diversity and provide ecological resources for numerous organisms at habitat and city scales. These processes could reverse biotic homogenisation, but further studies are needed to understand the effects of wilding on invasive species and their consequences. From a socio-ecological perspective, the attitudes of city dwellers towards spontaneous vegetation are modulated by successional stages, with grassland and ...
Source: Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: research