How do you create habitats and corridors for wildlife with planting design?

Wildlife habitat corridors, especially within urban landscapes, offer a multitude of benefits, enriching the lives of both residents and our local wildlife. It's remarkable how we often overlook the hidden potential within the neglected green pockets scattered throughout our cities. Those grassy patches along roads, parking lots, or even modest community parks, often dominated by simple grass and weeds, could transform into thriving hubs of biodiversity. Imagine turning these overlooked spaces into vibrant urban wildlife corridors, right in our own front yards!

C'est la synthèse entre le diagnostic préalable et les moyens humains et financiers qui orientera le projet: les espèces cibles, l'échelle d'intervention, les moyens de gestion et de suivi. Il peut y avoir un différentiel important entre ce que l'on attend au départ et la réalité du terrain. De plus tout ne passe pas forcément par la plantation, parfois il suffit d'éteindre la lumière

Many planned unit developments require a "buffer" that has a higher percentage of plant life than concrete structures. They also have retention ponds. It would take a keen eye and cooperation between developers and planners to puzzle together these spaces. Water and shelter are two primary habitat components. Build that into the PUD overlay across cities in a way that connects them to nearby natural areas and parks like the loxahatchee wildlife refuge. You will see that the value of the homes along the corridors will be sold at a premium. Win win...

By understanding the existing baseline habits, foraging activities and connectivity traits. Designing to conserve and restore those existing habitats as well as enhance. Using development as catalyst for habitat improvement. Landscape and ecological design input from the outset within a project is imperative.

Corridors are the most beneficial when they defer to nature rather than human design concepts. What did the human construct displace or disrupt and how can that be replaced or re-established

Since we are discussing creating corridors for local wildlife that said wildlife will actually use, it is essential to start with observations as the corridors should approximate existing tracks and routes. How does the local wildlife use the specific site? Where would they naturally cross the human barrier, e.g. a road? Once the routes of varied species have been identified, then one can plan the corridor where those routes exist, creating a corridor with plants etc that are a continuum of their habitat

Yes, we study their environment, but we should try to understand why they use each corridor and when they use it. We do not want to design corridors as we understand but a corridor that they can recognize as their own.

Habitat fragmentation is a critical issue in the context of an alarming decline in global biodiversity, with significant risks to ecosystem and human health. Indian Landscapes are mong the world's most fragmented exhibiting high-to-moderate but extensive fragmentation. Additionally, since it's risks are coupled with other drivers such as emissions, and industrial activities, habitat fragmentation poses significant risks to important sectors such as agriculture, as well as human well-being, & implicated in rights of indigenous people. Recent studies highlight Fragmentation as a critical issue that affects "endangered, critically endangered & vulnerable" terrestrial mammals the most, with the highest risk of extinction, assuming urgency.

In my opinion and the designs that i create, i always includes the mostly found wildlife in that particular region. From designing a govt. landscape to designing a public park i try to make it accessible for wildlife when i design in the middle of industrial area , I includes more tree over the shrubs because it can be home of for birds , making small waterbodies in design become the source of available water for birds. Avoiding tree prunning / trimming makes it home for birds. In my suggestion targeting only one wildlife animal class mostly found in that area can help you to designing the suitable landscape for wildlife in public parks.

It is important to understand what makes wildlife choose one corridor over another, which is sometimes nearby when designing a corridor. Answering this question can be done by selecting plants and configuring the area according to wildlife needs to ensure they integrate it into their cognitive map as one of their corridors.

The story from my experience was very simple. I try to attract birds with planting tree species with seeds or fruits. I planted them dense or packed within a corridor, with large grouping in every a 100 meters or so. I also try to push the areas to be as far as possible from general traffic or wide roads, windy areas, smoke-generating facilities, and high-risen buildings.

Creating habitats and corridors for wildlife with planting design by habitat monitoring and management is a complex and interdisciplinary task that requires careful planning, design, implementation, and evaluation. Some general steps and principles that can guide us in this process are identify the habitat areas and the wildlife species that the corridor is designed to connect, select several target species for the design of the corridor, based on their conservation status, ecological role, habitat requirements, dispersal ability, and public appeal and evaluate the relevant needs of each target species, such as food, water, shelter, breeding sites, and movement patterns.

Monitoring should begin with how wildlife integrates it. Do they use it in a natural way? After that, the second phase of monitoring should focus on long-term changes. Is it continuously used or abandoned?

The effective creation of wildlife corridors needs the earliest involvement of the Landscape Architect, the Ecologist and the Arboriculturalist. They need to guide the development, together with other professionals to ensure the development responds to the green infrastructure needs of the site, rather than trying to retrofit green infrastructure afterwards

When designing wildlife corridors, we should represent wildlife perception by separating it from human perception. Despite providing socioecological benefits to us, it is not designed first for us, but for them.

My experience showed me, that in general, wildlife are animals. They live for food, breeding, and shelters. Provide them with those, and they can survive, or it may even attract new ones to come. But please be warned. If their natural habitat was breached into, their instinct of survival would take over.