In an extraordinary finale, Planet Earth II reveals why allowing wildlife into a city can be the secret to healthy city life.
DUNIAKANA As a city grows rapidly, wild animals and people coexist better than ever.
The futuristic Gardens by the Bay in the center of Singapore is a revolutionary botanical garden spanning over 100 hectares of reclaimed land. This is a wonderful asset to the city, which may also offer avenues of happiness and health for its citizens.
"There is strong evidence to show that maintaining a connection to nature is great for our health," explains Fredi Devas, producer of the episode about cities, Cities, on Planet Earth II.
"Many studies have shown that hospital beds with windows facing greenery speed up patients' recovery. Schools have better attendance rates and companies have staff with better memories, if they have vegetation near them."
Watching wild birds in the Jakarta City Forest
Harar, the holy city that also produces beer
Super Trees
A total of 18 giant tree-like structures have many uses for the city. First, their mechanical columns actually support a wide variety of plant species, which are habitats for wildlife.
These 'giant trees' also become solar panels that help reduce the city's electricity bills, and the presence of plants helps the city to be cooler by providing shelter, reflecting sunlight, and releasing water into the environment through evaporation.
Lastly, the structure also provides valuable space for local residents to enjoy, something Singaporean politicians will surely want to maintain.
"The Singaporean government has a good understanding of how to make their residents happy and healthy living in the city," Devas explained. "Their desire was to build a city within a park, realizing that if they wanted the brightest people to come and work there, they had to be interested in something more than just a good salary, and green cities were a huge draw. "
So Singapore has the courage to prioritize ecological wealth and sustainable space, around the area where it plans to build skyscrapers with beautiful views.
However, it is not only Singapore that is promoting the urban green revolution. Milan built a pair of terraced blocks with 800 trees on their recently award-winning faade, forming the world's first vertical forest.
“The Bosco Verticale is iconic, and people really want to live there,” Devas happily explains.
Opinion, These revolutionary parks and forests are a beautiful example of how, by embracing the countryside into our cities, we can reap huge health benefits as well as improve the well-being of our planet. But this concept of coexistence is not just a 21st century phenomenon.
In Ethiopia, the walls surrounding the old city of Harar were built more than 400 years ago to protect its citizens from raiding armies. Yet within these stone barricades they created a special little 'gate' to welcome a predator that is most often misunderstood; Spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta).
With a reputation for being cunning and cunning, spotted hyenas are known to attack livestock, and very rarely attack humans.
Despite being Africa's second largest predator after the lion, the Harar people believe that inviting them inside can help eliminate evil spirits. For that the butchers left bones on the streets for them, and one local family even fed them by hand.
This close relationship, built over several centuries, has had a calming effect on the hyena's behavior while within the city walls. "There seems to be a pact between the Harars and certain hyenas," Devas explained. "They just don't attack the cattle within the city."
It is estimated that a population of over 200 individual hyenas has already gained access to the city, with a possible 50 roaming around the walled city at the same time, "This could be the start of the taming process of one of the world's most unlikely animals ."
Hindu Holidays
Traditional Musical Instruments ; The tolerance for wildlife is especially evident in India, where they have accepted city animals for centuries. In Jodphur, India, where the Planet Earth II team witnessed how wildlife benefit from a relationship with humans. According to Hindus who associate themselves with Lord Hanoman, the local langur monkey Hanuman (Semnopithecus hector) is given more food than they eat.
Thanks to a good diet, these urban monkeys are enjoying a population boom, with females giving birth for the first time four years earlier than their forest-dwelling cousins.
In the harsh jungle environment, female langur monkeys can only give birth every four years, where their urban cousins are privileged, giving birth annually.
Greening the Gray
News; Urban wildlife ecology is a contemporary field where researchers are just beginning to understand how animals feed in our concrete jungles. Globally, an area the size of Great Britain is buried in urban land every ten years, so the choice is that wildlife must be eliminated or accepted.
In habitats like the one in this novel, where wildlife is inevitably competing with the biggest changes on our planet, and few animals can adapt, the loss of biodiversity is met with expansion in cities that are constantly on the rise.
By greening our cities, we are able to create a richer environment for ourselves and the animals invited back into the city. As narrator Sir David Attenborough gives his opinion at the end of the series.
"If we create space, the animals will come."
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