Eco Corridors: At its simplest, a corridor is a strip of land connecting two protected areas. All plants and animals require biodiversity to thrive, and by building roads or fences, or allowing walls of alien vegetation to grow, animals, birds and seeds are confined to limited spaces. This in turn affects migration and interbreeding, resulting in limited gene pools moving forwards.
Other functions include:
-
Facilitating movement between ecosystems by both large and small animals
-
Maintaining key ecological processes (seed dispersal, pollination, nutrient cycling, predator-prey interactions, proper functioning of the hydrological cycle) across different types of habitats
-
Maintaining habitats that aid movement by animals through a degraded environment
-
Serves as a fire escape for animals
-
Allows for the re-colonization of indigenous plants in degraded patches
-
Enhances the long-term survival of larger herbivore and carnivore species by safe-guarding their home ranges
-
Ensures the flow of ecosystem services that contribute to the overall ecological sustainability of an area
-
Enhances the biodiversity of the landscape in which the corridor occurs
For more info on Corridors visit: Eden to Addo
As humans we love to travel, and get anxious whenever we are constrained. So it shouldn’t be surprising that other species thrive on this too.