Restoring Wildlife Corridors: Reconnecting Habitats for Survival, by 2050
Our roads disrupt wildlife and threaten survival. Can we continue to embrace solutions like wildlife crossings to reconnect habitats and show future generations that our true place is within nature.
“We have a responsibility to protect wildlife and ensure their survival. Wildlife habitat has been manipulated to suit the needs of human populations. We need to come together to reconnect pieces of isolated habitat to improve the survival rate of wildlife.” Shailyn Miller commented on behalf of the NAFWS (Native American Fish and Wildlife Society) (1)
When you get in your car, or on your bike, and head to your regular stops throughout the week, do you ever stop to think that the roads we so thanklessly use each day are likely impacting the wildlife living all around us?
No, probably not. And thats not your fault. The entire construction of our culture and the 'human world' is built in a way that communicates to us that the earth is here to serve our needs, only.
That in some way, the 6 billion years of life was all destined and in pursuit of nourishing and stimulating the human. That seems plausible, right? (Please do sense my sarcasm here)
When an animal gets hit by a vehicle, we call it roadkill, due to simply being in the way at the wrong time.
When infact our roads are part of what causes The Barrier Effect, where by wild animals are faced with these incredible hurdles (our roads) stopping them from safely continuing on their migration routes, foraging for food or migrating to safety from other hazardous factors in their current areas.
Kylie Soanes at The University of Melbourne cited that "When a road impedes daily movements, resources that occur on the opposite side of the road are less accessible. Roads may filter the movement of individuals based on age or sex, and thus disrupt population demographics such as sex ratios and age structure" (2)
Wildlife crossings seem to be a very effective work around to this issue, with the gold standard based in Banff Canada.
With key advocates and stewards for this solution coming from the surrounding indigenous communities. (3) Communities whose people never saw the world as theirs for the taking. For them life is harmonious and our species remains humble in the constant learning nature provides.
Unfortunately our colonised ancestors were blind to these beliefs, rendering us today with increasing loss in our biodiversity, due to our intrusive and non regenerative activities, like our road and highway systems pose on the surrounding nature.
If you have chidren in your life, related to or not, I believe its truly in service to them and their lives that we do what we can to show them the beauty of nature and how we are very much apart of it, not above it.
If you haven't already read the book Braiding Sweetgrass, or listened to the podcast Life Worlds, I urge you put them high on your list to help in reframing your mind to see the world as aliving, interconnected being. It can only do your mind some good! (3)
1 - nafws.org/initiatives/tribal-wildlife-corridors/
2 - besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.14582
3 - www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/the-alberta-story-wildlife-crossing-in-banff
4 - Braiding sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17465709-braiding-sweetgrass
Life worlds https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCU-yW6hIz3kgLENRTaSD5XQ/videos
Yes, great nudge! As a sensitive one, I still mourn animals killed by cars, though not as much as when I was a child and cried for them. As an adult on water walk with indigenous elders, I learned to praise and honor them. So I am whole-heartedly in favor of manifesting ways where all beings have safe passage.