🌿 Green infrastructure, 💧 blue infrastructure, 🟫 brown infrastructure: each has a specific function, and together they form a true living map of the region.
🌿 The Green Corridor: Forest Paths
It connects green spaces such as forests, hedgerows, meadows, embankments and gardens. It serves as a migration corridor for many land-dwelling animals, such as hedgehogs, roe deer and pollinators. It also helps seeds to be dispersed by the wind or by animals.
🔎 Example: a green bridge over a motorway allows animals to move safely from one woodland to another.
💧 The Blue Network: Waterways
It connects rivers, ponds, wetlands, marshes and canals. It is a vital aquatic network for migratory fish (such as eels), amphibians (such as frogs) and insects such as dragonflies. It also plays a key role in the hydrological balance: it absorbs floodwaters, filters water and creates refuge areas during droughts.
🔎 Example: Installing a small water source in a garden makes it easier for these species to access water and reduces the distances they have to travel.
🟫 The brown web: the hidden life of the soil
Often overlooked, the ‘brown fabric’ refers to living soils and their continuity: earthworms, fungi, bacteria, springtails… These soil engineers make the earth fertile, break down organic matter, regulate the climate and play a part in the water cycle. But land sealing (roads, car parks, concrete) fragments this network and isolates areas rich in life.
🔎 It’s important to bear in mind the brown fabric, for example when planting vegetation in a school playground to preserve soil life.
🧩 Why are these corridors so important for biodiversity?
Species need connectivity to move around, reproduce, adapt to climate change or recolonise natural habitats after local extinction. But our human infrastructure (roads, towns, industrial estates) creates barriers. As a result, habitats become isolated, populations decline and biodiversity is lost.
Ecological corridors therefore make it possible to: • 🛣 Restore connectivity for wildlife. • 🌱 Keep natural habitats connected. • 🌍 Facilitate adaptation to climate change. • 🧭 Rethink land-use planning to benefit wildlife.
🏙 Is that possible in the city too?
Yes! Even in the city, ecological corridors can exist: a row of trees, a green roof, a stream, unpaved ground… These elements can serve as habitats for biodiversity. 🌱 Planting a hedge, removing paving from a courtyard or leaving a patch of land untouched are all simple ways to restore these corridors, even in the heart of the city.
🌟 What if we were to rethink our landscapes as living maps, where biodiversity can flow freely, from the treetops to the depths of the soil?
🎯 Educational activities
1. Ecomap: identifying disrupted ecological corridors (from Year 3 onwards)
Objectif : identifier les passages pour la faune et repérer celles qui sont interrompus par des infrastructures humaines.
Procedure:
- Creating an Ecomap of a specific location: An environmentally sensitive map.
- Use red stickers to highlight areas where biodiversity is under threat and green stickers to highlight areas where measures are being taken or could be taken to protect biodiversity.
Equipment:
- Ecomap to download: An environmentally sensitive map
- Red and green stickers
2. Citizen science: observing the insects around us (Key Stages 2–3)
Aim: to listen to and observe nature in order to build up a database.
Method:
- Starting with a blank sheet of paper, create an observation sheet covering a specific area (drawing, name, behaviour, etc.).
- Enter the data into the “JardiBioDiv” app.iv”. NB: Choose a spot with plenty of greenery for the best chance of spotting wildlife.
To help you run the session more effectively, we suggest you download the session plan.
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