Beyond green: Broad support for biodiversity in multicultural European cities

Abstract

While urban growth contributes to the biodiversity crisis, biodiverse greenspaces within cities could support both human wellbeing and biodiversity conservation. Yet, urban greenspaces are under pressure due to the rapid densification of cities worldwide. Urban conservation policies thus need broad support, ideally from people with different sociocultural backgrounds. Whether urban residents prefer biodiverse over simply green spaces, however, largely remains an open question. We tested how diverse respondents (N = 3716) from five European cities valued three levels of biodiversity (plant species richness) in four ubiquitous greenspace types. Our field survey revealed that biodiversity matters: People largely prefer higher plant species richness in urban greenspaces (i.e., parks, wastelands, streetscapes) and agree that higher plant species richness allows for more liveable cities. Despite variation across European cities, positive valuations of high plant species richness prevailed among different sociocultural groups, including people of migrant background. The results of this study can thus support policies on a biodiversity-friendly development and management of urban greenspaces by highlighting social arguments for integrating biodiversity into urban development plans.

Keywords

Urban nature; Biocultural diversity; Environmental valuation; Green cities; Human wellbeing; Migration background

Published in

Global Environmental Change
2018, Volume: 49, pages: 35-45 Publisher: ELSEVIER SCI LTD

SLU Authors

• Busse Nielsen, Anders

  • Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • University of Copenhagen

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG11 Sustainable cities and communities
SDG15 Life on land


UKÄ Subject classification

Landscape Architecture
Ecology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.02.001

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/95323