Managing the Megacity for Global Sustainability: The New York Metropolitan Region as an Urban Biosphere Reserve

Abstract

The UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR), while not originally conceived to include urban areas, was intended to include sites representing all significant ecosystems with the goal of support for sustainable development locally and globally. Drawing on the example of the New York Metropolitan Region (NYMR), which has a population of 21.4 million, it is argued here that the eventual inclusion of the largest of the world's cities in WNBR not only is within the logic of the biosphere reserve concept, but would also benefit the network and its goals. The ecological significance of the NYMR, its role as a driver for global environmental change, as well as the efforts under way in the city to improve urban environmental management and governance are all examined. Potential added value to the WNBR of including megacities such as the NYMR is considered, in particular, regarding the sharing of best practices, lessons learned, and the strengthening of links between megacities and their global natural resource bases.

Urban Governance of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

“…Finally, even in contexts where decision makers have access to relevant knowledge, it may take time before this has an effect on policy, public awareness and political action (LieberherrGardiol 2008 ;Niemelä et al 2010 , p. 3238). One study from New York Metropolitan Area suggested that the connection between science and policy was weak because the scientifi c view was considered just one of many stakeholders involved in decisions (Alfsen-Norodom et al 2004 ). Furthermore, while some see linking science and the views of stakeholders as offering potential for knowledge co-production (Bayá Laffi te 2009 ), there are signifi cant paradigm differences to be dealt with in mediating approaches to urban biodiversity and ecosystem service issues (e.g., Antrop 2001 ).…”

Stewardship of the Biosphere in the Urban Era

“…Furthermore, ecosystem services governance is extremely complex since the environmental agenda of cities is intertwined with a number of issues and competing priorities, as well as multiple temporal and spatial scales of ecosystem processes and their relation to multiple infl uencing and impacted actors (Sendstad 2012 ). Several studies indicate that public institutions have a lack of cooperation across departments or levels of authority, and have an inadequate capacity to handle diverse information and deal with change to respond to environmental problems (Alfsen-Norodom et al 2004 ;Blaine et al 2006 ;Andersson et al 2007 ;Ernstson et al 2010b ). Strategies and regulations tend typically to focus only on a few ecosystem services at the local scale (Ernstson et al 2010b ), assume stability in their supply (Asikainen and Jokinen 2009 ), and show a lack of provisions connecting urban consumers of ecosystem services and the people managing the services that the urban consumers depend on, originating from outside the city boundaries (Blaine et al 2006 ;Puppim de Oliveira et al 2011 ).…”

Semi-Urban Areas in Landscape Research: A Review

“…According to Adell (1999), peri-urban zones are dynamic, both spatially and structurally, Living Reviews in Landscape Research http://www.livingreviews.org/lrlr-2008-3 and form distinctive areas of agricultural and non-agricultural activity. Alfsen-Norodom defines the entire area around metropolitan areas as a separate "biosphere" -a concept to see a landscape with dense and less dense built-up areas and generally a hybrid land use as a entirely "new form of (dynamic) landscape", with its own biotopes, ecosystems and landscape dynamics (Alfsen-Norodom, 2004;Alfsen-Norodom et al, 2004). A typical "biosphere" related variable, carrying capacity can be useful as variable, to measure the semi-urban area, which can be seen as a heterogeneous mosaic of natural, production and agricultural ecosystems (Allen, 2003).…”