Foreword

Summary

There is an increasing trend towards urbanisation all over the world. In developed countries, around 80% of the human population now lives in cities or towns. Similarly, in developing countries, there is increasing movement to cities and towns with associated development pressures and ecological impacts in urban areas. In addition, while many rural areas are depopulating, changing land uses are placing major ecological pressures on these landscapes. These changes have had major impacts on biodiversity with detrimental changes to ecosystem processes and functions, habitat loss and fragmentation, and widespread loss of species.

Humans are a dominant species; landscape planning and management are necessary to minimise their impacts. In the past, we have relied on dedicated conservation areas and national parks to conserve the biota. We now know that these areas are usually left over after the more productive soils and landscapes have been developed for human enterprises. As a result, these areas are inadequate for the conservation purposes for which they were dedicated. The land outside these areas is also critically important for the conservation of biodiversity, and a layer of management that addresses this function now needs to be added to the more traditional management of much of the world.

Landscape connectivity is one major landscape attribute essential for the conservation of biodiversity. If we are to retain all biotic elements in landscapes and preserve ecological functions, we need to preserve the ecological connectivity of those landscapes. This involved recognising the ecological connectivity of urban and rural landscapes and planning to retain such connectivity or enhance it where appropriate.