Abstract Body

Managing biodiversity in urban landscape involves complex interactions among stakeholders, environment, and wildlife. There has been increasing attention drawn on the potential of urban ecosystem as important habitat for wildlife as well as providing climate regulating, recreational and aesthetical services to human. With the fast urbanization, urban greenspace and parks are established in a high speed but without enough biodiversity consideration.

Beijing, one of the world’s biggest and most populated capital cities, is home to rich biodiversity and an important flyway for migratory birds in the world, such as Beijing swifts and multiple species of cranes. It also provides habitats for small mammals like leopard cats and badgers. However, in creating and managing green spaces, biodiversity and ecosystem services are usually not sufficiently considered, which causes a significant decline of wildlife habitats and overall biodiversity. Specifically, birds and carnivores are losing shelter and food resource with the loss of mixed landscapes such as cropland, bushes, and natural meadow.

This project, supported by Beijing Municipal Forestry and Parks Bureau and Beijing Forestry Carbon Administration, is a pilot to show what ecological principles and measures are needed in managing greenspaces in urban areas to maintain or increase biodiversity. For example, in Wild Duck Lake Wetland Park, the cropland was restored as a food resource for the great bustard and the common crane; in Beijing Olympic Forest Park, under-canopy enrichment for small carnivores and insects was experimented; in Beijing Jingxi Forestry Farm, gaps were opened in planted monoculture forests allowing under canopy plants to regrow naturally. Through stratifying vegetation types and maintaining natural successions without too much intervention in greenspace management, the biodiversity and ecosystem services could be enhanced, and our monitoring data indicated such improvement. In the meantime, citizens were engaged in the monitoring, field surveys, and habitat-restoration activities to increase general awareness and understanding of urban biodiversity. Based on the pilot project, a guideline will be developed for greenspace management in Beijing. Similar measures could also be applied in other cities.