Edges of Connection: reconceptualising the human role in urban biogeography

Abstract

The Sydney Basin Bioregion has high native species diversity, a large proportion of its land area under conservation tenure and over five million human residents. Environmental management strategies developed on the basis of an ecological and biogeographical literature that is either blind to the human presence or views it solely as a threat are unlikely to be effective in such a context. Humans will need to be re-imagined and co-opted as active co-constructors of this nature rather than solely as threats to it. We bring ethnographic and biogeographic evidence together to address this practical challenge, analysing the attitudes and practices of 38 backyarders who live adjacent to, or in close proximity to, bushland. Results are summarised along a continuum between restoration and gardening. Important themes are boundaries and boundedness between domestic and outside space, engagement and stewardship on public land, and nurturing and vigilance behaviours.

Keywords:

• Garden
• edge effect
• restoration
• urban ecology
• ethnography
• suburb
• boundaries
• invasive species

The project was funded by ARC Discovery Project grant DP0211327. The authors would like to thank Gordon Waitt and two anonymous referees for constructive comments.

Notes

1. ‘Bioregions are relatively large land areas characterised by broad, landscape-scale natural features and environmental processes that influence the functions of entire ecosystems. They capture the large-scale geophysical patterns across Australia. These patterns in the landscape are linked to fauna and flora assemblages and processes at the ecosystem scale, thus providing a useful means for simplifying and reporting on more complex patterns of biodiversity’ (http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/npws.nsf/Content/bioregions_explained) (accessed 28 June 2005). The adoption in NSW of a bioregional approach to biodiversity conservation is one example of the use of the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) (http://www.deh.gov.au/parks/nrs/ibra/) (accessed 28 June 2005).

2. The terms ‘native’ and ‘invasive’ as usually used in environmental management are part of a particular nature-talk that itself requires close examination. We have retained the terms unproblematically in this paper in order to engage with an environmental management audience, but note Head and Muir (2004).