Complexity and Consequence in Coupled Natural Urban Systems

Abstract

We start by stating the obvious: human activities have profound impacts on the environment. While there are more apparent and singularly evident mechanisms by which we harm the natural environment, such as through pollutants and waste, the impact of human settlements is more extensive yet less examined outcome. It has been widely noted that our human population is moving increasingly into urban or collocated settlements, concentrating our footprints into ever larger towns and cities. Such colocation brings economic and cultural benefits but concentrates environmental impacts. There is increasing work that recognises that urban and natural ecosystems must be considered as continuities and that zoning regulations that prescribe areas for settlement do not delineate boundaries of these systems. The Galapagos Islands are an appropriate living laboratory in which to consider both the consequences of a growing urban population and the interlinked systems. The resident population of the islands is growing as are the number of visitors who wish to see the distinctive ecology first-hand. The permanent and transient human population of the islands is growing, posing obvious and real challenges to the primary source of the opportunity, the natural environment. The chapters of this book therefore examine matters that have consequences for sustainable cities by taking a case study of a particular and distinctive example. Only five out of 18 major Galapagos Islands are inhabited with permanent human settlements. Until the Galapagos National Park (GNP) was established in 1959, both settled and natural areas were managed in the same way. The GNP was assigned 97 precent of the total land area and the two areas were subject to distinct management through zoning. The boundaries between National Park (natural) and inhabited areas are carefully maintained to control the detrimental impact of human settlements on natural ecosystems.