Biodiversity

Biodiversity is essentially everywhere, present on Earth’s surface and in every drop of its bodies of water. Biodiversity is the foundation of ecosystem services to which human well-being is intimately linked.

Learn more about Conserving Biodiversity in Subdivision Development with our four part continuing education course or view the resources below.

The Green Leap: Can We Construct Urban Communities that Conserve Biodiversity?

For the first time in our history, more people live in urban vs. rural areas and humans continue to move into cities. Cities have huge impacts on our natural resources. Urban dwellers consume vast amounts of energy, produce waste, and alter landscapes to the point where native plant and animal populations decline precipitously. As cities grow, people have pondered – can we develop land without destroying our natural heritage?

In Terms of Conserving Biodiversity—How Functional is a Conservation Development?

I recently blogged about how we could construct urban communities that conserve biodiversity. On private lands marked for development, one strategy to conserve biodiversity is to build a conservation development (CD). CD is an approach to the design, construction, and stewardship of a development that achieves functional protection of natural resources, while also providing social and economic benefits to human communities.

Building for Birds

A Primer for Conserving Biodiversity in Subdivision DevelopmentThe goal of the building for birds online tool is to provide decision makers with a way to evaluate different development scenarios and how they affect habitat for different species of forest birds that can use fragmented areas. This evaluation tool should primarily be used for situations where the development footprint is relatively small and/or occurs in already fragmented landscape