Wildlife Trust
The New York Bioscape Initiative
A Shared Sense of Place

Habitat fragmentation, suburban sprawl, increasing toxification and rapid global movement of people and other living organisms have worked synergistically to decrease biodiversity and diminish ecosystem function. This has resulted in unprecedented threats on the health of all species, including humans, and their habitats.

The pace of urbanization has intensified the resolve of Wildlife Trust to empower local scientists to achieve conservation and educate citizens about the interdependence of wildlife health and their own well-being.

THE BIOSCAPE CONCEPT
Toward that goal, Wildlife Trust created the term "bioscape" as a way to describe a particular region and as an approach to achieving conservation in that region, with an emphasis on biodiversity, ecology and health.

Successful bioscapes are marked by a strong, local sense of place linked to an understanding of the connections between biodiversity, ecology, health, and sustainable living within an infrastructure that supports research and affects changes in policy.

The geographical center of the New York Bioscape is Columbus Circle in Manhattan, and it spans a 100-mile radius to include New York City and parts of New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, home to 24 million people, or 8% of the U.S. population. The Bioscape's 28,000 square miles (44 counties) also are home to approximately 5,000 species of plants and animals.

This diverse region is a complex mosaic of human-use and natural areas, surprisingly rich in biodiversity. The area's natural features include the popular coastal beaches of New York and New Jersey, Long Island Sound, Hudson River and Delaware River Water Gap, the Catskill and Pocono mountains, the New York-New Jersey Highlands and the New Jersey Pinelands.