A few days ago someone forwarded me a story about plans in England to build “high-rise” habitats for animals, within an urban setting. This continues the theme I began in my “What would animal rights look like?” post a few weeks back.

Can animals live in high-rise blocks?

If the plans come to fruition, the structure aims to encourage a variety of species to “reclaim their urban landscape”.

It is the vision of a small team of architects, a vertical solution to a horizontal desire to offer shelter to creatures in urban areas where space on the ground is tight.

The man behind the project, 26-year-old Neil Oxlee, hopes his “man-made tree” will provide a habitat for bats, birds, butterflies, insects and even foxes.

I haven’t studied it enough to really know if it’s a feasible idea as it stands now or not, but what I really like about it is that these people are thinking about building with animals in mind. And not just how to keep them out of our spaces or how to build to hold them, but rather building for the animals, so that they can have habitat within our habitat.

That architects and planners are thinking about this gives me hope that we might actually start planning our spaces so that the other inhabitants of the earth can exist here too.

I’d really like to see continuous areas of greenspace habitat with overpasses or underpasses so that animals could have an unbroken path through our cities and towns. Fences and other barriers could be used to keep animals separate from humans if they present a danger, with their habitat being respected and not encroached upon.

This idea of vertical habitats reminded me of vertical farms, which would allow for the growing of crops within cities. If these farms were able to feed us all, then more of the existing farmland could be returned to a natural state, providing habitat for all sorts of wildlife. What I really like about this plan for vertical farms is that they are designed to be all organic, grown without the use of chemicals, pesticides, or artifical fertilizers. Ideally, they would be veganic, utilizing human waste and compost as fertilizer.

Living on earth as responsible citizens is possible, if we put our minds to it.