CHAPTER 2: CIRCLE OF LIFE
environmental was launched blueprint in 1992: the Singapore Green Plan (SGP) (Ministry of the Environment 1992). The plan is regularly reviewed to take into account of emerging ideas and issues, and the SGP 2012 was developed with specific targets to control air pollution, improve efficiency of water use and waste management, and maintain good public health (Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources 2016).
Green spaces, healthy people
The greatest benefits to people of urban ecosystems are health and recreation. There have been a number of studies that suggest that humans become more mentally and physically healthy if they can approach nature easily (Ulrich 1984). Furthermore, the ecosystem within a city has the effect of connecting people living in the city with nature (Clos 2015) and raising their interest in nature. In the Republic of Korea, for example, people visiting geen city centres showed high levels of satisfaction (Park et al. 2016).
The construction and management of green space is very important (APUFM 2017), especially in megacities – those with a population of more than 10 million people. Asia and the Pacific currently has 17 of these, and that number is expected to increase to 22 by 2030 due to rapid population and urban growth. Some of the countries in the Asia-Pacific region, such as China and the Republic of Korea are developing and implementing various strategies related to urban greening and urban forestry to improve the sustainability of their rapidly expanding cities (APUFM 2017). In 2017, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) supported two Asia-Pacific Urban Forestry Meetings (APUFM), at the second of which the host nation, the
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Republic of Korea, developed the Seoul Action Plan, designed to raise the quality of life of its citizens and promote urban sustainability (Box 9).
Combining urban life and nature
As cities grow and develop, nearby forests become fragmented and reduced in size (Estevo et al. 2017); as a result, biodiversity and habitats disappear (Kim and Park 2011; Hahs et al. 2009). With careful urban planning, however, cities can be ‘naturalized’ to increase the presence and resilience of species through initiatives targeted at blending nature more broadly and deeply into urban life (Figure 14) (Boada and Maneja 2016). Large parks, for example, can serve as habitats for many species (Sing et al. 2016; Yuan and Lu 2016). But compared with other regions, relatively few studies on how to maintain urban biodiversity have been carried out in Asia and the Pacific (Botzat et al. 2016; Beninde et al. 2015).
Urban fauna can have both beneficial effects such as increasing urban biodiversity services and negative ones including disrupting or damaging infrastructure. Nonetheless, urban biodiversity is a strong indicator of human well-being. It can serve as a tool for monitoring global change and measuring a city's efforts to harmonize its activities with nature. Cities that are more species diverse are often more resilient and provide a greater variety of natural benefits to residents, such as enabling them to enjoy the beauty of seasonal plant and animal life (Figure 14). A deeper understanding of the importance of urban biodiversity can lead to improvements in the relationship between people and the planet, meaning sustainable cities provide hope for the future.
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