ABSTRACT
Global biodiversity requires urban biodiversity because people living in cities will decide how much of the diversity of life on Earth today will travel with us into the future. Billions of people now experience only urban species. This makes the conservation, restoration, and enhancement of biodiversity in cities necessary to help humanity make better decisions about the future of the planet. Impacts of human activity on ecosystems interact across space and time in cities, requiring solutions to wicked problems. The field of ecological restoration offers technical and methodological advances that can be applied on behalf of urban biodiversity and provides starting points for answering key questions like “What should the goals be? What methods should be used? How should success be evaluated?” within the constraints and opportunities particular to urban environments. Success of these efforts depends upon community involvement, understanding and consideration of community needs, and recognition that sociocultural and biophysical context are interdependent. In a time of broad concern about the future of the planet, care and stewardship can engage people with biodiversity by connecting personal responses to species in everyday life to larger environmental systems. Many creative approaches are needed to bridge the distance between people and nature in the places where future generations will build their understanding of biodiversity.
