This is what an "urban biodiversity map" looks like - made for the Indian city of Nagpur, the "tiger capital of the world"
Tipped off by eco-design consultant John Thackera, we are delighted to bring you the “Urban Diversity Map” of India’s Nagpur, self-described as the “tiger capital of the world” (full PDF of map here).
We’re interested in what level of power comes to be invested in the “bio”-definition of a territory. Whether it’s rivers gaining corporate personhood, or bioregions mapping out their relations between the natural flows of a territory, and the human communities living there.
The Nagpur map is interesting for its beauty - Mumbai has also been given the biodiversity treatment on a map - which reflects the important of shared visual communication in India, with its hundreds of regional languages.
The richness and attractiveness of the realisation above is striking - making pleasurable connections between urban infrastructure and precious wildlife and natural resources in the city, more than worrying about absolute environmental accuracy.
What’s also notable, and picked up by John, is that this is a “Smart Cities” initiative - usually a watchword for paving a place in start-up business parks, 5G wifi transmission, navigation by smart phone, and micro-surveillance.
Certainly, if you look at the Nagpur Twitter account, they are performing the functions of a smart city statistically, by publishing a graphic “dashboard” of their vital Covid statistics - along with pictures of their multiscreened control centre.
But alongside these are street design initiatives, bike riding campaigns and other sustainably-oriented projects - the impression is of a city bustling to map and direct its own human and ecological energies. A “Cascadia”, indeed.
