Conference 2003
Greening the City:
Bringing Biodiversity Back
into the Urban Environment
Abstract:
A Biodiversity
Strategy for Christchurch
Jenny Ridgen, Kelvin McMillan & Kelly Hansen (Biodiversity Strategy
Team, Christchurch City Council)
Despite
a century and a half of urban development, Christchurch contains
a wide variety of plants and animal life. This is partly a reflection
of its location, encompassing the Port Hills, coast, waterways,
wetlands, dry woodlands and grasslands.
To
meet the challenge to protect, restore and celebrate the city's
biodiversity, the City Council has set out on the process of determining
the priorities for Christchurch. This includes looking at how to
implement the New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy (DoC & MfE,
2000) at a local level through community education and involvement,
developing a sense of place, and identifying gaps in our knowledge
and management skills and finding ways to address them. Workshops
have been held with local communities and with key stakeholders
and from these a series of goals and objectives have been developed.
The draft strategy will include a list of actions for implementing
these. It will also provide a brief overview of the components
that make up the city's biodiversity, including estimates of between
2,500 and 4,500 endemic insect species and 350 endemic plant species.
The strategy will provide a graphical outline of the main initiatives
proposed for each of the four main ecosystems within the city boundaries,
e.g., revegetation of Port Hill gullies, waterway restoration on
the wet plains, sustainable management of the dry grasslands and
revegetation projects along the coast.
The
strategy aims to provide an overview of the work that is needed
and practical ways in which the whole community can work together
to sustain the full range of species and habitats which are special
to Christchurch.
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