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Natural ecosystems provide indispensable services for human life. When biodiversity is degraded, we not only lose habitats and species, we are also jeopardizing our very existence.
Pristine natural habitats provide indispensable services for our lives: water is filtered and purified by plants and the soil; vegetation serves as a carbon sink and releases oxygen; plants and animals are essential for agriculture and livestock raising, providing the food we eat; forests harbour the ingredients that our pharmaceuticals are based on, provide protection from flooding and soil impoverishment, regulate the climate, etc. Climate change and development are seriously threatening biodiversity, or the variety of life on Earth.
Due to human activities, animal and plant species are disappearing with an unprecedented speed, with irreversible consequences for our future. Unless preventive measures are adopted, an estimated 17 to 35% of all species will be extinct by the year 2050. As valuable and irreplaceable as they are, parks and nature reserves are generally not enough to face this threat. Without a network that can connect both large and small natural ecosystems, wildlife and plants are condemned to progressive isolation, which inexorably weakens their vitality.
Over the last 50 years, many urban areas have joined up with each other; cities spread out in a linear manner, along major roadways. The urban surface has grown enormously. In Lombardy today, new buildings – such as residential, industrial, or commercial developments – and infrastructure gobble up over ten hectares of natural or agricultural land each day. The result is a gradual fragmentation of natural area, boxing wildlife in. The TIB – Trans Insubria Bionet project was established to invert this trend in an area where urbanization rates are well beyond acceptable thresholds.