WITH OUR BACKS TO THE WALL

A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPLORATION OF URBAN FAUNA BY ZACH CHALLIES

“They’d begun to come upon dead windfalls of pine trees, great swaths of ruin cut through the countryside.” - Cormac McCarthy The Road

The world’s biogeography is now to man as man once was to nature. Where humankind once built villages and townships on the borders of great woodland and by rivers and shores we now construct the natural world around us, where we see fit. Concrete now houses the natural world in a controlled environment for the convenience of the city-goer. Kept out of the way of the busy streets in organised rows caged in brick and steel, the reveller may appreciate their city’s consideration for the environment and dedication to conservation as the wilting grey-greenery flows past the window of their gasoline-fed automobile.

The sheltered nature of city life is apparent when one examines the fauna pushed into the corners of back alleys or hanging decrepitly over the side of a concrete enclosure. Many of these plants are in-troduced into an environment dominated by a superior species, left to die, razed and then the soil in which they once lived is replanted with differing species.(Jim, 1988) Worse off are the relics of forests that once densely occupied the areas now drenched in tarmac and pavement. Monoliths of steel, mortar and glass, the tombstones of their ancestors stand over them mocking their short organic lifespans.

Elsewhere in the world illegal and legal deforestation is contributing to the greenhouse effect accelerating global warming (Fearnside & Laur-ance, 2004). Many once abundant areas of rainforest felled to below 10% of their original size affecting extinction upon many recorded spe-cies of flora and fauna (Dessie & Kleman, 2007). This devastation of wildlife and environment and its consequential planet-wide impact goes unnoticed in the cities of modernised humanity. We consider our synthe-sised biogeography to be our contribution to a greener world but the scorched, barren earth is creeping in around us.

SOURCES

Dessie, G., & Kleman, J. (2007). Pattern and Magnitude of Defor-estation in the South Central Rift Valley Region of Ethiopia. Moun-tain Research and Development,, 27(2), 162-168.

Fearnside, P. M., & Laurance, W. F. (2004). Tropical Deforestation and Greenhouse-Gas Emissions. Ecological Applications, 14(4), 982-986.

Jim, C. (1988). Street Tree Study as a Theme in Urban Biogeog-raphy. Geography, 73(3), 226 - 232. Retrieved April 8, 2012, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40571421