Ordinary nature: the value of exploring and restoring nature in everyday life

A great deal has been accomplished during the past decade in the area of urban wildlife conservation, restoration, and management. Natural resource managers and agencies have been responsible for initiating a wide variety of ambitious and innovative programs and policies, helping to gain new awareness and appreciation of the value of conserving and enhancing wildlife habitat and species in urban areas. Despite this progress, my impression, based on many years of related research (Kellert 1996) and personal experience, is that the great majority of the urban public, decision-makers, and developers remain largely indifferent and incognizant of the value of a healthy and diverse natural environment in the modern city. Open spaces in most urban areas are still often managed with considerable indifference and callous disregard for their natural functions and amenities. Their value, when acknowledged, is largely measured in the currency of economic development and environmental disfigurement. More egregiously, environmental damages associated with industrial and housing development, building, and road construction are seldom systemically considered and incorporated in a serious and sustained way. Few urban developers and municipal leaders recognize the connection between a city's natural environment and the quality of life, long-term prosperity, and stability of these areas. Restoration and protection of urban biological diversity is typically viewed as a noisome regulatory obstacle, afforded little planning or budgetary consideration , and often disappears from sight at the slightest sign of political and economic distress. My hometown of New Haven provides a typical illustration, despite recent improvements and lofty policy pronouncements to the contrary. Most symbolic of the long-term disregard for the natural environment , New Haven and the state of Connecticut built a major interstate highway along its remarkable harbor (the third largest in New England), an almost impenetrable physical and psychological barrier from the city's waterfront, which is still distinguished for its natural beauty and diversity. The roughly 18% of New Haven remaining in park and open space is usually treated with apathy, as a safety hazard, or potential development site. Only a minority of municipal leaders and developers perceive these areas as offering opportunities to connect with a host of important physical, emotional, and intellectual environmental values and benefits. The prevailing assumption in New Haven, as in most other cities, is that the promise of economic and civic renewal resides in new industrial development, shopping malls, construction and, of course, an expanded and improved highway system. Despite …