Urban Ecology and Conservation. Staffordshire University

Urban Ecology and conservation is primarily about promoting wildlife and wildlife habitats within urban areas. With 80% of people in the UK living in urban areas now, and globally 60% by 2030, it is vitally important that towns and cities are healthy places to live, and biodiversity can help. Contact with wildlife has immediate and long-term psychological benefits for humans as well as improving physical health. Vegetation removes pollutants such as particulates from diesel fumes, gasses and chemicals from the air. With climate change on the way vegetation in the form of green roofs and green walls provides insulation so we don’t have to use so much energy in our buildings keeping cool or getting warm, and structural vegetation such as street, garden and parkland trees provides shading.