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BiodiverCities: A Roadmap for Fostering Human Wildlife Coexistance in Greening Cities
BiodiverCities is a three-year interdisciplinary research Biodiversa+ funded project examining how humans and wildlife live together in rapidly changing urban environments - in Stockholm, Cape Town, Gent, and Freiburg
The project's goal is to develop an interspecies etiquette: a set of principles and practices that can guide future multispecies cities. This etiquette will be grounded in real socioecological conditions and in public values about how different species can share space.
Ultimately, it will support biodiversity management at multiple levels, help mitigate conflicts, and engage local communities in shaping urban environments.
Although climate change and biodiversity loss can feel abstract in everyday life, wildlife encounters resonate strongly with urban residents today. Cities around the world report rising interest in local wildlife, but also increasing polarization, with some residents wanting to “save everything” and others to “kill everything.” At the same time, urban wildlife management often responds only to immediate problems in a triage approach, and responsibilities are scattered across agencies that rarely coordinate. This leads to uneven and sometimes contradictory decisions.
