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The Urban Injustice: Redefining Nature

The freshly printed ticket warmed my palm as I stood in line at the Denver

Botanic Gardens. I proved my purchase, cracked open the clean glass door, and
stepped out into the glorious summer morning. The surrounding urban crown fell
away like an unwanted crust, revealing the sheltered land within. Birds saturated
the air with their calls and songs, rejuvenating my city-worn eardrums with their
soft assault. Everywhere I looked danced with color amidst greenery. Dense
expanses of plant life cloaked the buildings and walkways, furthering the foreign
though welcome atmosphere.

As I stepped further into the gardens, I began to notice the astounding

diversity of animal life. Armies of pollinators tirelessly tended flowers, while

families of quail and peahen navigated the tangles of trees. Small mammals and
rodents occasionally darted across paths, offering onlookers a brief, blurry
affirmation of their existence. Looking carefully, I observed many species of
unfamiliar insects perched on leaves or scurrying up walls.

Seeing such a seamless coexistence between a major urban area and a highly

diverse set of sub-ecosystems provoked my inner-philosopher. I had never

understood why traditional environmentalists drew such a stark line between
urban areas and natural areas, as if cities cannot harbor nature. Birds, mammals,
plants, fungi, and microbes will always adapt and thrive in our industrial
environments; nature is just as present in our backyards as it is in the wilderness.
Any notion that urban areas somehow evade natural processes is false, and only

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reveals our own misconceptions. We tend to think that only portrait-worthy
wilderness qualifies as nature, but in reality, while cities and suburbs comprise a
different type of environment, they foster genuine ecosystems. As long as we refuse
to recognize these ecosystems, they will remain diminished shadows of what they
could be.

The gardens evoked a child-like sense of wonder in me, as they seemed to

understand this problem. Here, in the middle of an urban kingdom, stood a fortress
of biodiversity: a window into a future in which urban and natural need not be
opposite endpoints on a spectrum. It represented what might be possible if we
began acknowledging the fact that conservation can take place both out in the
wilderness and here in the city. If we could start undertaking restoration projects
not just as attractions, but also as integral functions of our cities and suburbs,
humans and their other natural counterparts could enjoy a more symbiotic
existence.

Our current perception of nature is analogous to the resort-culture that has

developed in countries like Mexico. Most tourists are drawn there only for the
luxurious resorts: much like traditional notions of nature, resorts are beautiful,
lavish places, and all different types of people appreciate them. When someone says
Im going to vacation in Mexico, they are almost always referring exclusively to a
resort. The country of Mexico, of course, consists of much more than just tourist
hotspots. These other areas draw the opposite response form tourists: they carry
(often false) connotations of violence and poverty, and few tourists have any desire
to see them. The result, then, is that an entire groups concept of Mexico is a

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collection of resorts: they ignore the parts that dont seem to have any value. Should
these areas not be considered part of Mexico? Obviously the country consists of
much more than Americanized pockets of tourist-friendly getaways: both types of
environments serve as parts of the whole.
This exclusion is completely illogical, and it mirrors the relationship between
environmentalists and urban areas. Urban ecosystems may not be as appealing as
pristine wilderness, but that doesnt mean that we should not cultivate them. Cities
and suburbs exist in much higher concentrations than wilderness, and if we truly
want to conserve biodiversity, we must focus on improving and expanding the
ecosystems they harbor.

For most of my life, I was stuck in the trap of this false opposition of Nature

versus Humanity. Like so many other environmentalists, I viewed urban areas as

the ultimate antagonists. There was no middle ground, no grey area. This is
unsurprising, as its so easy to write off any ideas of compromise or restoration in
urban environments as giving in to the encroachment of urbanization. This
philosophy is simple and clean, but its not realistic. Cities are a permanent feature
of our civilizations, and our only shot at saving most of our planets biodiversity lies
in restoring and fortifying these cities ecosystems. By ostracizing such settings, we
would ultimately put a nail in the coffin of biodiversity. Only by accepting the fact
that both traditionally natural areas and urban ecosystems are important for
healthy biodiversity can we truly start to become effective conservationists.