With the vastly increasing human population on this planet, it is urgent that we begin to re-zone areas throughout the World into a new ordenance. I suggest three main areas.
1. The Metropolis Zone – industrial & residential areas.
2. The Agropolis Zone – farming communities, rail and road systems and rural areas.
3. Wilderness Zone - virgin areas (wetlands, estuaries, forests etc) or remediated areas. Corridors to link one wilderness area to another with safe negotiation of intervening transportation routes.
Corridors have been pioneered in Africa – to link Kruger National Park, South Africa, and a nearby park over the border in Mozambique. Dr. Mike Chase has monitored elephants fitted with satellite tracking devices in Botswana and has discovered that they range enormous distances along well established tracks. Some of these tracks extend into neighbouring Angola – which used to be the home of at least 100,000 elephants until they were slaughtered for their ivory by warring factions, or chased off southwards to Botswana. Some of the latter elephants are trying to make their way back to their old haunts but are encountering new settlements and farms in their way and causing havoc. Dr Chase is trying to identify these old migration routes with a view to clearing barriers and other impediments. Clearly, new settlers in these areas need a government organised re-settling scheme – and many parts of Angola need defining into the three main zone areas indicated above. This type of re-settlement scheme is working successfully in India where new wilderness areas are being restored in the Western Ghats. The populations re-settled are provided with basic homes and employment – so it is a win-win situation.
