A few quotable quotes from

The Urban Imperative

Note: The editor selected these quotations for the purpose of publicizing the book in other media. Many other quotes could have been chosen. 

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“The message of this book is that conservationists will be a lot more effective if they take cities and the people who live in them much more seriously. Cities have a bad name in many quarters of the conservation community . . . Conversely, the conservation movement has a bad name among many who work on urban problems . . . The truth is that protecting nature and improving city life are interdependent goals. Conservation and urban leaders are natural allies. The challenge is in making the right connections.”

“The fight for the conservation of the Amazon will not be won in the depths of the Amazon forest. It can and will only be won in Rio de Janeiro, São Paolo, Brasilia, and the other large Brazilian metropolises. From the populous cities come the news and cultural trends. This is where the opinion makers live and preach. Urban protected areas must be structured to cater for their neighbor, the urban visitor. More than that, they must be one step ahead of public policies that include good environmental practices.”

— PEDRO DA CUNHA E MENEZES (Online paper; page 54 in the print edition)

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“[Urban] people cannot care about what they have not experienced. Neither will they have much interest in paying the taxes or providing the political support which is necessary to maintain viable national parks.”                                             

— JUDY LING WONG (quoted on page 105 of the print edition; see the online paper in which she is quoted)

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“With the growth of modern cities, and the increasing pressure of people on urban environments, it is likely that biodiversity will become an ever-receding and quaint concept in the minds of future decision-makers. In the developing world there is an additional problem of poverty. If direct evidence of nature is absent in any influential way from the lives of the well-off, then the poor are even more prone to this blind-spot. And for Africa it is the state of poverty where the bulk of its citizens are trapped, where the majority of voters subsist, and from whose ranks the future leaders must rise.”

— GEORGE DAVIS (Online paper; see page 96 in the print edition)  

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“[The Mayor of London’s Biodiversity Strategy has] a strong social dimension that may at first have seemed a radical departure from traditional nature conservation . . . the objective being to enable all who live or work in London to have greater contact with nature in their own locality.”                                                        

 — DAVID GOODE (Online paper; see page 75 in the print edition)

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“In inner-city areas, the environment is neutral ground, ‘an issue that brings people together, an issue around which people can connect with each other,’ whether the agenda is nature or refurbishment of structures.”

— ROBIN MABEY (quoted on page 136 of the print edition; see the online paper in which he is quoted)

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“[The goal of San Francisco’s Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy] is to elevate parks to the same level of community importance as other civic assets: as basic as schools; as essential as libraries; as necessary as hospitals; as valuable as clean air and water; as culturally important as symphony halls, opera houses, and museums.”

— BRIAN O’NEILL and GREG MOORE (Online paper; see page 143 in the print edition)

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“Even if you can’t restore the ecosystem, you can restore the aesthetics. Environmentalists often write off urban ecosystems, but you can’t write off people.”                          

— JOSEPH T. EDMISTON (quoted on page 110 of the print edition; see the online paper in which he is quoted)

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“Increasing the level of stakeholders’ participation [in Buenos Aires’ nature reserves] has resulted in minimizing conflict and achieving broad consensus. We are convinced that this is largely due to our adopting a clear, easy-to-understand message that breaks with the traditional perception that people must be excluded from protected areas.”

— MARIA VIRGINIA DE FRANCESCO (Online paper; see page 147 of the print edition)

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“The challenge before all of us now is to convert the experience gained to date into a significant global program that further strengthens the relationship between urban people and protected areas. Such a partnership is not only important; it may be essential to the well-being of urban peoples, and the protected areas upon which their welfare depends.”

“‘This has to get into the bloodstream’ of the international conservation movement; otherwise the movement ‘will struggle for relevance in the next decades. We are talking about the human race and its future on the planet.’”