好英语网城市再野生化 受惠者不只是野生动物
Urban rewilding projects are tempting nature back into our cities, from creating city butterfly meadows to building unlikely homes for deadly birds of prey.
城市再野生化项目正吸引着大自然回到我们的城市，包括为蝴蝶创建城市草地，为致命猛禽建造不可思议的家园。
The middle of London’s hectic West End doesn’t seem like the likeliest location for one of the UK’s rarest birds. There are only an estimated 20-40 breeding pairs of black redstarts in the country. But in recent years, without being artificially introduced into the area, this rare bird has started to make a home in this crowded part of Central London.
对于英国最稀有的鸟类而言，伦敦西区繁忙的市中心似乎不太可能是它的栖息地。据估计，这个国家只有20-40对正在繁殖的赭红尾鸲（black redstart）。但近年来，这种稀有鸟类开始在伦敦市中心这个拥挤的地区安家落户，而它未被人工引入该地区。
The black redstart isn’t the only unexpected species of wildlife to start living in conspicuously urban landscapes. Moths, butterflies, woodpeckers and even serotine bats, more commonly found in rural pastures, have also been on the rise in this part of London.
除了赭红尾鸲，还有一些意想不到的野生动物开始生活在引人注目的城市景观中。飞蛾，蝴蝶，啄木鸟，甚至大棕蝠（serotine bat）——这些常见于农村牧场的物种，在伦敦这一地区的数量也在上升。
It’s a trend growing in strength worldwide. While in New York, peregrine falcons – once nearly extinct in the US, can now regularly be seen diving at breakneck speeds from skyscrapers across the city.
这是全球范围内的一种增长趋势。游隼曾一度在美国濒临灭绝，但现在在纽约，人们经常能看到它们从摩天大楼上以极快的速度俯冲下来，穿过这座城市。
These changes are the payoff of increasing efforts to transform dense urban areas from wildlife dead-spots into attractive, viable homes for nature alongside city dwellers. One new initiative is even trying to get offices to keep beehives.
这些变化是越来越多的保育工作的结果，将人口稠密的城市从野生动物的死角变成有吸引力的栖身之处，让野生动物与城市居民和谐共处。一项新倡议甚至主张在办公大楼养蜜蜂。
You don’t have to completely redesign a city’s layout to achieve this, says Emily Woodason, a senior landscape architect at the design and planning firm Arup. Sometimes creating pockets of greenery at sufficiently regular intervals is enough to tempt wildlife back into an area. The Wild West End project, involving six of London’s largest landowners, is seeking to create 100 square metres (330 sq ft) of green space every 100m.
设计和规划公司奥雅纳（Arup）的高级景观设计师伍达森（Emily Woodason）说，你不必完全重新设计一个城市的布局，就能做到这一点。有时，以规律的间隔创造小块绿地就足以吸引野生动物回到一个地区。由伦敦六个最大的土地所有者参与的“野生西区”（Wild West End）项目，正寻求每隔100米设置一块100平方米的绿地。
“It’s an ambitious objective,” says Woodason. “Ultimately the aim is to create a green corridor between London’s parks.”
“这是一个雄心勃勃的目标，”伍达森说：“最终的目标是在伦敦的公园之间建立一条绿色走廊。”
As well as planning more green areas, many of the landowners are choosing to retrofit existing buildings with green walls or roofs. So far, it appears to be working. Since a baseline wildlife assessment two years ago, several unexpected species have returned to the area, including the black redstart.
除了规划更多的绿色区域，许多土地所有者选择用绿色的墙壁或屋顶来改造现有的建筑。到目前为止，它似乎起到了作用。从两年前的野生动物基线评估以来，一些意想不到的物种已经返回该地区，包括赭红尾鸲。
“One of the types of space created might include rock piles and log piles, which are great at attracting different insects and allow more natural colonisation of species over time,” says Woodason. “Those conditions are perfect for this type of bird.”
“创造让野生动物栖身的空间，类型包括岩石堆和原木堆。它们非常善于吸引不同的昆虫，随着时间的推移，它们可以让更多的物种自然地繁衍生源，”伍达森说：“这些条件非常适合这种鸟。”
Attracting rare species back to cities isn’t just “nice to have”, although it does make urban life more varied and interesting. Some of the species tempted back by such programmes are the ones we rely on heavily for food security, such as pollinators like bees and butterflies. Their populations are plummeting globally.
吸引稀有物种回到城市并不仅仅因为“这是件好事”，尽管它确实让城市生活变得更加多样和有趣。这些项目吸引回来的物种中，有一些是我们在食品安全方面严重依赖的物种，比如蜜蜂和蝴蝶等传粉昆虫。它们的数量在全球范围内直线下降。
“We realise that planning, development, architecture and industrial design are all complicit in wiping out other species on this planet,” says Mitchell Joachim, director and co-founder of Terreform, an ecological planning and architecture firm. “I am absolutely passionate about trying to restore these habitats in cities, and to instil that in how we plan our buildings.”
“我们意识到，规划、开发、建筑和工业设计共同导致了地球上其他物种的灭绝，”生态规划和建筑公司Terreform的董事兼联合创始人约阿希姆（Mitchell Joachim）说：“我非常热衷于尝试在城市中恢复这些栖息地，并将其融入我们的建筑规划中。”
Sometimes that means planning a giant, eight-storey transparent vertical meadow into the walls of an office building in Manhattan. Monarch butterflies are native to North America but have been disappearing fast since the 1980s because of widespread destruction of milkweed, a plant that monarchs use while breeding. “Milkweed is a highly invasive species, humans don’t like it – it can give you a rash, or take over your beautiful American lawn,” says Mitchell.
有时，这意味着要在曼哈顿的一栋办公楼的墙壁上规划一个巨大的八层透明垂直草坪。黑脉金斑蝶（Monarch butterfly）原产于北美，但自上世纪80年代以来，由于黑脉金斑蝶繁殖栖息地植物马利筋（milkweed，又称乳草）遭到大面积破坏，这种蝴蝶一直在快速灭绝中。“马利筋是一种高度入侵的物种，人类不喜欢它——它会让你起疹子，或者侵占你美丽的美式草坪，”约阿希姆说。
Building a space for monarchs into the building would be part of an effort to slow their precipitous decline.
在大楼里为黑脉金斑蝶建造一个空间，是为减缓它们数量急速减少所做的努力之一。
“It is a sanctuary for monarch butterflies, to breed them, with nurseries for caterpillars and areas for the chrysalises and the adult butterflies,” says Joachim. “They live there for a few weeks and then they’re released.”
“它是黑脉金斑蝶的庇护所，是它们繁殖的地方，是毛虫的温床，也蝶蛹和成年蝴蝶的栖息地，”约阿希姆说：“他们在那里住几个星期，然后就飞走了。”
To have a real impact on monarch butterfly populations, it will take more than one sanctuary. The most important thing to do is restore the butterfly’s natural habitat – within the city and outside it along its migration route to Mexico – in particular by providing more milkweed.
为了对黑脉金斑蝶种群产生真正的影响，仅只一个保护区并不够。最重要的事情是恢复蝴蝶的自然栖息地——在城市内外，在它迁徙到墨西哥的路线上——尤其是要提供更多的马利筋。
In cities, a roof garden is the obvious place to start allowing milkweed to grow. One such roof garden is planned to sit on top of the butterfly building, which the insects are greeted with when they are released into the open air. But this is something that everyone who owns or rents a property can contribute to, not just the proprietors of large landmark buildings. To make a long-term difference, people need to look past the state of their lawns and leave the milkweed intact.
在城市，屋顶花园显然是让马利筋开始生长的地方。其中一个屋顶花园计划建在蝴蝶大楼的顶部，当蝴蝶被释放到户外时，人们可以和它们打招呼。这是每个业主和租客都能做出的贡献，而不仅仅是大型地标建筑的业主。为了做出长期的改变，人们需要暂时忽略草坪的状况，让马利筋可以良好成长。
Sometimes wildlife returns to a city not because people carve out a designated space for them, but because something toxic to them is removed. The pesticide DDT, originally considered a wonder chemical, was used widely in agriculture from the 1940s. It wasn’t until decades later that people discovered it was highly toxic to many species, including humans, and the US’s Environment Protection Agency (EPA) banned it in 1972.
有时，野生动物回到城市并不是因为人们为它们开辟了一个特定的空间，而是因为对它们有害的东西被清除了。杀虫剂DDT最初被认为是一种神奇的化学制品，从20世纪40年代开始在农业中被广泛使用。直到几十年后，人们才发现它对包括人类在内的许多物种都有剧毒，美国环保局（EPA，Environment Protection Agency）在1972年将其禁用。
Among the worst affected were birds of prey, because the toxin accumulated up the food chain. The US population of peregrine falcons, the world’s fastest bird of prey, was decimated and by 1970 the birds were on the edge of extinction.
受DDT影响最严重的是猛禽，因为这种毒素积累在食物链中。游隼是世界上速度最快的猛禽，其在美国的数量锐减，到了1970年，这种鸟类已濒临灭绝。
A group of scientists set up a conservation initiative they called the Peregrine Fund, to try to breed peregrines in captivity until they could be released into the wild. One place that the peregrine falcons thrived turned out to be quite unexpected.
一群科学家发起了一项名为游隼基金（Peregrine Fund）的保护行动，试图在人工饲养的情况下繁殖游隼，直到它们能够被放归野外。游隼繁衍生息的地方出人意料。
“They started to experiment with releasing peregrine falcons into cities,” says Erin Katzner, director of global engagement at the Peregrine Fund. “Not only did it work, it worked really well.”
“他们开始尝试将游隼放归城市，”游隼基金全球参与总监卡兹纳（Erin Katzner）表示：“不仅成功了，而且效果非常好。”
The skyscrapers provided a habitat that the birds were well adapted to – high up, with sheer drops, with spots to nest far away from potential predators like racoons or foxes. Scientists worked with building owners to create ledges for the birds to nest on. Pigeons and migratory birds provided plentiful food. As pollution of the food chain with DDT declined, peregrine falcon populations in cities soared.
摩天大楼为鸟类提供了一个很合适的栖息地——在高处，有陡峭的落差，有远离浣熊或狐狸等潜在捕食者的巢穴。科学家们与房屋所有者合作，为鸟儿们搭建起可以在上面筑巢的壁架。为鸽子和候鸟提供充足的食物。随着DDT对食物链的污染减少，城市游隼的数量激增。
“Now you can find them in almost every city across the US, including multiple pairs in Manhattan,” says Katzner. “You can go into downtown New York City and see peregrines flying among the skyscrapers.”
“现在，你几乎可以在美国的每个城市找到它们，包括曼哈顿也有好几对，”卡兹纳说：“你可以走进纽约市中心，看到游隼在摩天大楼之间飞翔。”
Even for birds released into the countryside, there are now many accounts of them making their way to cities of their own accord, because they had become such a good habitat. As well as exciting birdwatchers, urban birds of prey help to keep down rodent populations within the cities.
即使是那些被放归乡村的鸟类，现在也有很多关于它们主动迁徙到城市的报道，因为城市已经成为了一个很好的栖息地。城市里的猛禽不仅让观鸟者兴奋不已，还有助于减少城市里啮齿动物的数量。
Urban rewilding initiatives often have multiple levels of benefit – greener spaces make people happier, but they also help solve water drainage problems and prevent flooding, as well as providing a home for pollinators and other animals. But perhaps one of their most valuable traits is to make people feel more connected with nature and be more aware of our relationship with the environment.
城市再野生化计划通常有多个层面的好处——绿色的空间让人们更快乐，它们也有助于解决排水问题和防止洪水，以及为传粉昆虫和其他动物提供一个家。但也许它们最有价值的特性之一是让人们感到与大自然的联系更紧密，更清楚地意识到我们与环境的关系。
The long-game is not just to build in green compromises to existing city areas, but to shift what development looks like in a city. Until recent years, urbanisation has meant turning green areas grey with the concrete, asphalt and glass of traditional buildings and infrastructure. That transformation has unsurprisingly ended up being bad for our mental wellbeing, physical health, environment, ecosystems and wildlife.
长远来看，不仅要在现有城市区域植入绿色植物，还要改变城市发展模式。直到最近几年，城市化还意味着用传统建筑和基础设施的混凝土、沥青和玻璃将绿地变成灰色。毫无疑问，这种转变对我们的精神健康、身体健康、环境、生态系统以及野生动物都是有害的。
Rewilding is one way to reverse that process: prioritising plants and animals first, and paving the way for the benefits to our health, wellbeing and the urban environment that follow.
城市再野生化是扭转这一进程的一种方式：首先优先考虑植物和动物，这样做能为我们的健康、福祉以及随之而来的城市环境带来的好处。