| Abstract: |
Their projects are examples of the new frontier of environmental studies: urban ecology.
Until recently, the only real environments thought worth studying were in “pristine” nature, remote areas as far as possible from the footprint of human beings. Cities, by contrast, were seen as unnatural, nonenvironments, whose parks and gardens, ornamental plants and scraggly sidewalk trees and weeds were of as little interest to ecologists as house cats and lap dogs are to be big game hunters.
Now, though, ecologists are finding that cities are interesting, legitimate environments, with surprisingly high levels of biodiversity, and what’s more, that understanding and protecting them may be crucial to our environmental future.
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