If you had to choose between living in a thriving forest full of organisms, including apex predators, or in a desert with barely any life, where would you choose to live? Your chances of survival would be higher in the forest. It provides the ideal conditions for life, with shade from the scorching sun, and easy access to water and food. But of course, you would have to overcome your fears.
Forests are complex ecosystems of diverse organisms that interact with each other. At an individual level, all living organisms in the forest are motivated to survive and reproduce. Yet, they are all connected and play a critical role in maintaining a fine balance in the larger ecosystem.
In the early 20th century, the Yellowstone National Park in the US was in a deplorable condition with a large part of its land barren with dying plants. In an experiment to restore its ecosystem,135 grey wolves, which were heavily hunted and almost extinct, were reintroduced to the park. In the years before the re-introduction, the large deer and elk population led to overgrazing, increasing soil erosion and widening of the rivers. This, in turn, set off a chain reaction of further destruction. The grey wolf, the park’s apex predator, hunted the overly populated deer and elk population and restored the balance of the original ecosystem. The reintroduction of the wolves led to the revival of the thriving national park we know today.
More than 75 per cent of flowering plants globally need insects and animals to pollinate them. They cannot multiply without pollinator insects like butterflies and bees. Besides the complex interdependence of the plant and animal kingdom, there is the fascinating fungal kingdom, which connects trees and plants. Fungi, which include mushrooms, are mostly on the roots of plants and trees. Many scientists believe trees talk to each other, through this underground network. Research shows that if a tree gets attacked by a disease, it alerts neighbouring trees. Depending on the threat’s severity, trees either brace themselves with a protective barrier or disconnect from the infected tree. The underground communication network is coined as the “wood wide web”.
Every organism in nature plays a critical role in creating a balanced ecosystem. As human beings, we are only one part in this larger ecosystem and are beginning to understand this only now.
Observing nature makes you realise that nature is very intelligent, hence the term “Natural Intelligence”. Just like Artificial Intelligence, we have only scratched the surface in our understanding of it. Step back and think about the complexity of the way the human body functions: How a single human cell creates energy or how each of us has a unique genetic code. In the plant kingdom, think about how a plant uses a green pigment “chlorophyll” to create energy from the sun.
Humans have been investing resources on trying to understand how the human body behaves and finding ways to change how it behaves through medicine for centuries. We realised humans have a genetic code only 200 years ago and are only beginning to even understand how genes work now. At a collective level, how we interact with each other is another story. Philosophy has been trying to understand human behaviour with each other, again for centuries, and yet we are confounded by the unpredictable behaviours and motivations of our species, clearly evident from wars and crimes.
A thriving forest ecosystem houses different types of plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms — different from a human-made green park. The diversity of the forest builds the resilience and adaptability of an ecosystem. A thriving biodiverse ecosystem not only provides for clean air, water and food but also helps us cope with natural disasters, diseases, and climate change.
So how do we build biodiverse spaces?
Studying trees and organisms that are native to an area is the first step and then reintroducing native plants and organisms to encourage restoration of original ecosystems is one way. And of course, there is protection of forests.
Mumbai is home to remarkable biodiversity. With a thriving biodiverse protected forest, the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, within its city limits and large amounts of mangroves and wetlands on its coast, the city has a lot of native land and marine biodiversity. Of course, the recent over-concretisation of the island city, with excessive buildings and roads is posing a grave threat to this biodiversity. But, we can take action to protect and enhance the biodiversity of a city like Mumbai.
To counter the coastal erosion, we can protect mangroves and natural marine habitats. We can invest in more sewage treatment plants that treat the waste the city disposes into the oceans and invest in new initiatives like artificial reefs that could enhance marine biodiversity. For land biodiversity, we should plant native species of trees and plants that exist in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. We can create habitat corridors so the organisms that are in the park can multiply, expanding the ecosystem of the park into the city. A “green corridor” can be created and help reap the benefits of climate mitigation.
Medellin in Colombia, created a similar network of green corridors. It led to cleaner air and a drop in two degrees of temperature in the city.
With the creation of the Mumbai Coastal Road, connectivity in the city has been enhanced. We have a rare opportunity to create a biodiverse green corridor in the reclaimed area between the road and land. This along with planting of native trees could connect the biodiversity of Sanjay Gandhi National Park to the entire city.
Similarly, a conscious focus on land and marine biodiversity across the country could greatly help address the climate issues we face today.
The writer is the Director of RPG Foundation and is redeveloping two parks in Mumbai for the ‘Green Corridor’
