LAUSR

Globally, around three million people move to urban areas every week; 54% of the world’s population live in urban areas, and cities account for 85% of global GDP generation. With only 1% of the world’s total land mass, cities are home to over 50% of the human population (Wang et al. 2018). A rapidly growing urban population comes with enormous challenges for city planners and managers. They have to ensure that cities today can deliver not only basic services such as accommodation, transport and water but that they are safe, resilient and environmentally friendly. Cities are also aggregators of materials and nutrients, accounting for 75% of natural resource consumption, 50% of global waste production, and 60–80% of greenhouse gas emissions (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2017). Cities, particularly in economically developing countries face multiple major challenges, including a rapid increase in urban populations with limited access to social services, burgeoning municipal waste generation, inefficient infrastructures and air pollution. Urban nature, such as green spaces and wetlands, provides critical social and ecological support for cities, but we know little about their diversity and composition in cities of the Global South. Exasperated further, most urbanisation across the world is occurring in ‘biodiversity hotspots’ in economically developing countries, which in turn has profound effects on ecological patterns and processes, which thus results in decreased density and diversity of flora and fauna in urban areas when compared to non-urban environments (Nilon et al. 2017). Reduction in urban biodiversity has significant consequences for city dwellers’ well-being by reducing the benefits that individuals and communities derive from the natural world, such as flood control, heat and pollution reduction, physical and psychological health, social cohesion and sense of belonging among others. Interestingly, recent research has shown that cities can still support significant levels of biodiversity, including endangered and threatened species, therefore contributing to overall biodiversity conservation and to human wellbeing in cities (Nilon et al. 2017). Furthermore, biodiversity in cities is not only about the number or density of plant and animal species; it is highly shaped by the social and cultural context in which it occurs and by the meaning city dwellers give to it. Therefore, cultural processes and individual preferences shape urban biodiversity and in turn biodiversity models cities’ life quality, culture and identity. The three of us met at the Global Environments Summer Academy, hosted by the Global Diversity Foundation, in August this year, in the UK. Over the course of the academy, we could not help discussing the shear tragic plight of wetlands in our cities and how if nothing is done to save the fragile but essential ecosystems of urban wetlands, many cities would soon become uninhabitable. During storms, urban wetlands absorb excess rainfall, which reduces flooding in cities and prevents disasters and their subsequent costs. The abundant vegetation found in these wetlands acts as a filter for domestic and industrial waste and this contributes to improving water quality. Below we share three examples of wetlands from our respective countries: India, Chile and Tunisia which are on the brink of becoming uninhabitable and need utmost and immediate attention. The first two examples from India and Chile need urgent attention and the final example from Tunisia highlights that with good intentions and determination, this site could become the first ‘Ramsar City’ in Tunisia.