by Charl van der Merwe, Environmental Ethicist. On behalf of Sedgefield Ratepayers Association (Edge Issue 747)

This is the first in a series of three discussions on ecological corridors, also referred to as conservation corridors, wildlife corridors and, in a certain sense, as urban open space.

Ian McHarg, a renowned American landscape architect, lecturer, and author of several books including “Design with Nature” (1969), believed that ecology provides the single vital basis for landscape architecture and regional planning. Today it has profound relevance for city planning, architecture, and regional planning. 

Key features of his design processes include multidisciplinary integration to provide holistic design strategies, the ability to tackle design problems across a wide range of scales, quantitative targeting of landscape performance and the “no go” option. These key features of the design process help establish landscape performance benchmarks and show how McHarg's processes can result in real and permanent good. 

McHarg seeks the intrinsic carrying capacity of land through a design process that respects, integrates, and facilitates multiple ecosystem processes, functions, and services. His ecological wisdom of “following nature’s lead in design,” however, does not feature in the space of planning and socio-ecological practices today. The use of scientific disciplines such as geology, soils, hydrology, ecological systems, and climatology to determine appropriate locations for development marked a distinct departure from planning based on promoting economic growth and self-interest.

McHarg argues that nature's crucial role is a call for unity between man and nature, to promote sustainable living that integrates the natural world into human design. Humanity's role is only as stewards of the biosphere. 

The modern concept of an ecological corridor stems from a deep philosophical history of landscape and movement, containing significant implications for ecology, ethics, and planning. Corridors serve as an argument for movement and interaction of ecological habitats characterised by a structured and practical concept of connectivity necessary to support life in an increasingly fragmented environment.

Corridors are the connection between parts of broken ecosystems and areas rich in ecological features. In our fragmented landscape, corridors enhance the ability of species to move across spaces as well as the ethical and aesthetic consequences of these activities. 

Ecological corridors are widely recognised as a tool enabling species movement between habitat patches. They are increasingly considered essential elements of ecology and conservation. At the heart of the corridor concept lies the idea of connectivity, the connection of the landscape for the survival of isolated populations and to help identify key conservation areas or landscapes. 

Corridors should prompt fundamental questions about what it means to think and act in a more-than-human world.

What counts as a corridor?
What forms of knowledge facilitate connection?
What levels of movement should be encouraged or limited?
What kinds of justice and inclusion should guide their design and implementation?

Answers to these questions have far-reaching implications beyond ecological corridors. They influence the conditions under which collaboration between human and nonhuman entities is managed, how discussions about connectivity are conducted, and how attention is given to how connections occur. 

Corridors and connectivity’s increasing importance reflect urgent calls to rethink how humans interact with nature, shifting from extraction and exploitation toward ensuring the health and vitality of all living things and their ecosystems. Corridors emerge as a promising idea within a broader landscape framework. 

Historically, the philosophical view of corridors has shifted from imagining mobility as indirect to understanding connectivity as circular and direct. Ecological mobility has merged with the concept of corridors as interconnected spaces that nurture, connect, and sometimes disconnect.

Corridors are then essential pathways for movement along multiple axes between communities. Corridors inevitably raise many questions, both tragic and hopeful, and an outline of their ethical significance has both biocentric and anthropocentric elements. 

Still, an important question remains unanswered: How would the ecological wisdom emanating from previous projects help link knowledge to action and inform current design, development, and implementation? 

Talking Conservation is a conservation-focused column in Sedgefield’s Edge newspaper, sponsored by Drie Valleyen Reserve.