3 Global Conditions – and a Map – for Saving Nature and Using It Wisely

Energy and sustainability, Erle C. Ellis, Essay, expanding design practices, Harvey Locke, James Watson, No Density

Agriculture, Architecture&nature, Biodiversity, Challenge, Cities, Community, Density, Designing Strategies, Ecological activation, Empowering society, Essay, Farming, Food production, Global Awareness, Health, Heritage, Human rights, Humanity, indigenous, Informal settlements, Land uses, Landscape, Mapping, Political & Economic Approach, Production, Sustainability

Originally published at The Conversation.
Contributors to the creation of the Three Conditions map include Harvey Locke of the International Union for Conservation of Nature World Commission on Protected Areas, Oscar Venter of University of Northern British Columbia, Richard Schuster of Carleton University, Keping Ma of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiaoli Shen of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Stephen Woodley, IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, Naomi Kingston and Nina Bhola of the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Bernardo B. N. Strassburg of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica and International Institute for Sustainability in Brazil, Axel Paulsch of the Institute for Biodiversity in Regensburg, Germany and Brooke Williams, University of Queensland.

Nature urgently needs our help. Wild creatures, from songbirds to butterflies and from primates to tortoises, are disappearing so rapidly that they could be lost forever together with the wild forests, grasslands and other habitats that long sustained them. We humans already use nearly half of all Earth’s land to sustain ourselves, and the most productive parts at that. Meanwhile, the habitats remaining for the rest of life are shrinking to levels too low to sustain themselves.