By Tristan Alston
As overpopulation and mass production continue to threaten our planet, the future depends on the conservation of urban areas.
For most, conservation involves rural lands and vast forests. However, conservation is changing to meet the demands of life in cities. New England joined the revolution, with Boston leading the way towards a safer and cleaner urban lifestyle.
“A lot of our work in Massachusetts is urban work–and also dam removals. We’ve done 40 dam removals in the past 15 years” said Cameron Bruns, communications and marketing manager of Southern New England for The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
TNC is a non-profit organization located in 69 countries, dedicated to conserving water sources and natural land. They recognize the severity of environmental problems and address them with innovation. Nearly 600 scientists have worked with volunteers to conserve 120 million acres of land, according to TNC statistics.
“The space has to benefit people in some way,” said Bruns, referring to the criteria examined when acquiring new land.
The Massachusetts Administrative and Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs also prioritize land conservation, its website defining it as “the protection of land with important resources for drinking water supplies, rare plants and wildlife, prime “working” farms and forestland, unique outdoor recreation sites, and the best remaining urban greenspace.”
With mass-consumerism rapidly monopolizing greater amounts of natural resources, scientists are tirelessly working to combat the destruction, creating reconstruction plans with conservation in mind. This enables the Nature Conservancy to protect and preserve these resources, as well as to bring back life to damaged areas.
“Massachusetts was a big mill area–but now the majority of those are just abandoned,” said Bruns.
“They’re not creating hydropower, they’re not doing anything except blocking fish. A lot of the land we work on is about removing these dams and restoring natural river flows so that fish can migrate,” she said.
Despite the discouraging statistics of overpopulation and climate change, non-profit organizations such as TNC approach the future with a positive outlook.
“People are always moving, wildlife is moving, and as things shift we want to be able to adapt with it and be nimble enough to protect whatever land needs protection,” Bruns said.
Recent efforts display the organization’s belief in education as the bridge between city residents and conservative efforts.
“We used to buy land and protect it. And now we’re working with urban communities on some of those more educational things and teaching people how they can protect themselves, their homes, their kids in the face of climate change,” Bruns said.
“I love this new focus we have on protecting people as well as the environment because they’re so intertwined,” she said.
Although Bruns acknowledges the daunting task, she believes the fitness of the planet is not as doomed as is often advertised. The urbanization of preservative concerns, combined with revolutionary technologies and ideas may be the key to resilience.
“I’m optimistic,” she said. “I think a certain amount of sea level rise and global warming will happen no matter what at this point, but I think we have an opportunity now to prevent the worst from happening.”
“[We also] protect people as these changes happen, it doesn’t need to be the most terrible thing in the world if we’re able to get out in front of it–There’s a lot of time now for adaptation as well as mitigation.”
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