Cities and protected areas: an oxymoron or a partnership? That the world is becoming increasingly urbanised is scarcely news. Today, half the world’s population lives in cities. It is, nonetheless, worth considering present and possible future trends, especially their implications for protected areas. For most of human history, the vast majority of people lived in sparsely-settled rural areas, often quite isolated and even at war with neighbouring populations. Under such conditions, conserving biodiversity through protected areas was hardly an issue. But as people started moving to cities, as part of an inexorable economic process of globalisation, human populations began to expand and protected areas became necessary. Urbanisation has led to the concentration of political power in cities, which has in turn tended to foster policies favouring urban over rural areas. Various forms of subsidies make food and other basic goods cheaper in the city, discourage agricultural investment, and attract rural people into urban areas. Most developing country governments have encouraged the growth of their large cities as a means of linking their domestic economy with the rest of the globe. Thus for many countries, the capital city controls the trade between urban areas and both rural and international markets, so cities like Manila, Sao Paolo and Bangkok may have more in common with Tokyo, London and Washington than with their rural hinterlands. What does all of this mean for protected areas? The urban environment includes a great diversity of habitats and many cities support abundant wildlife. In some cases these habitats play a significant role in the conservation of rare species, and the modern urban planning ethic is placing more emphasis on the maintenance of biodiversity in the urban environment. Planned cities such as Canberra, Brasilia, and Shen Zhen, include substantial areas for biodiversity, some of which meet IUCN criteria for protected areas. The case study from India points out that informally protected areas, such as university campuses, can also make important contributions to protected area objectives. In addition, even such seemingly contra-conservation uses of land such as golf courses can contribute to important biodiversity objectives if they are managed appropriately. While urban metropolises may seem, at first glance, to be burgeoning, crowded, overstressed habitats with little room for nature, they in fact provide a mosaic of different types of habitats, including skyscrapers, city parks, riversides, railroad rights-of-way, graveyards, agricultural lands, zoos and botanic gardens, university lands, tree-lined streets and so forth. While land-use changes associated with urbanisation typically lead to a decline in biodiversity, economic development in urban and peri-urban habitats does not invariably lead to the loss of all of the original biodiversity, and new habitats such as urban parks, urban forests, urban wetlands, domestic gardens, and roadside plantings, often support a surprisingly rich flora and fauna. London, for example, has over 2,000 species of plants growing wild. Given the great diversity of habitats found within cities, only some of which can be considered protected areas as defined by IUCN, how can urban lands make their best contribution to national efforts to conserve biodiversity? One important answer is to establish an appropriate coordinating mechanism. For example, in this issue’s lead paper, Ted Trzyna describes the administrative and management complexity of urban protected areas in a modern industrial society with numerous competing interests. The establishment of new agencies to coordinate activities, such as the Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, demonstrates the utility of an institutional umbrella under which numerous interests can shelter to achieve common protected area objectives. The main problem is fragmentation – isolated protected areas lose species and are subject to substantial human disturbance. As Ian Russell Brown, from the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service, shows in this issue, Lane Cove River National Park, a long, narrow protected area that is very popular with the Sydney population, is also subject to substantial pressures from the surrounding lands – including everything from pollution, and invasive alien species to arson. As the Brazil case has indicated, it sometimes takes a shock to learn a lesson about conserving nature; sadly, sometimes it is only after a habitat has been spoiled that we recognise its importance to us. But the Brazil case also has a positive message: that the resilient powers of nature are considerable, and if we can control our negative impacts, most ecosystems can rather quickly reach conditions of relatively high biodiversity. It is also worth remembering that human societies are dynamic, and that protected areas can help ensure productive responses to changing conditions be they ecological, demographic, climatic, or economic. But urban protected areas also have another major advantage: being close to people makes it easier to earn public support. For example, the establishment of a local NGO, called Friends of the Lane Cove River National Park, has been an essential element in building a supportive relationship between the local people and the protected area, demonstrating the point that even (and perhaps especially) dense human populations value protected nature. In helping us to think about urban protected areas, Adrian Phillips and Honor Gay present a very useful typology of these sites. Taking their ideas a step further, we might come up with a nomenclature something like the following: Heirloom Urban Protected Areas. These are relatively large protected areas that existed before the associated urban areas expanded to their current extent, serving as a reminder of the wild nature that once dominated the landscape. In their Case Study from India, Patwardhan and colleagues point out the critical importance of such urban protected areas as sources of biodiversity that can help populate other urban settings, such as home gardens or city parks. Urban Refugia. These are upland areas, such as the Delhi Ridge in India, Tijuca National Park in Rio, or Henri Pittier National Park near Caracas, which provide essential ecological services (especially watershed protection) to the urban area. For example, Stanley Park in Vancouver and Mount Royal in Montreal contain substantial remnants of the original ecosystems, and Kenya’s Nairobi National Park still supports much of the area’s original large mammals. Urban Greenbelts. These are areas that are usually semi-natural and have been specifically designated as part of regional land-use planning, such as Sidney’s Lane Cove River National Park. Sometimes these can provide a substantial system of wildlife corridors, as in Washington DC and its Rock Creek Park; these can also perform a flood control function. Designed Urban Natural Areas. This label is intentionally ironic, because these protected areas represent a specific effort by people to mimic what nature can already provide more effectively if left alone; but given the realities of the world, many opportunities are likely to be available for designing specific types of nature that can serve many of the functions of other protected areas, including the conservation of biodiversity and the provision of various ecological services. In addition to the examples of latter type given by Phillips and Gay, the Lesley Street Spit in Toronto, Canada, is an artificial peninsula four km long made from construction debris which was home to 150 species of plants and was visited by 150 species of birds within 20 years of the start of construction, all within a few kilometres of the centre of Canada’s largest city. Of course, no typology is perfect, but most of the protected areas mentioned in this issue can fit into one of these types. These types also can fit into any of the IUCN categories, and some may qualify as World Heritage Sites, Biosphere Reserves, Ramsar Sites, or other international designations; however, many may be too small to meet the size criteria of WCMC (1,000 ha), so the WCMC database undervalues urban protected areas (as pointed out by Trzyna). All of the types may serve important recreational and educational roles, which are particularly important in view of the political power of urban areas. This suggested typology may also help promote thinking about protected areas more broadly and their social and economic contributions to modern urbanised societies. Perhaps the major requirement is that urban centres need to have an umbrella coordinating agency that recognises the many contributions made by numerous forms of land use, all contributing toward the major objectives of protected areas: conserving biodiversity; building a strong relationship between people and living environment; and ensuring a sustainable life for all. In short, urban protected areas have been neglected by the protected area community for too long, and they need to be recognised for the many significant contributions they make to modern human societies and their conservation objectives. Pulling these papers together has given me the opportunity of corresponding with interested parties in various parts of the world. I am convinced that urban protected areas are an increasingly important part of national protected area programmes, and essential for building the necessary consensus for conservation in the 21st century. I will be seeking to ensure that this topic is well addressed as part of the World Parks Congress, to be held in Durban in September 2003, and I invite other interested parties to get in touch with me to discuss how issues surrounding urban protected areas might most productively be approached.

Jeffrey A. McNeely is Chief Scientist at IUCN Headquarters in Switzerland. He first came to IUCN in 1980 as Executive Officer of the Commission on National Parks and Protected Areas (now WCPA) and was Secretary General of the fourth World Parks Congress, held in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1992. E-mail: jam@hq.iucn.org.