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npj | urban sustainability Article
Published in partnership with RMIT University
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-025-00207-x
Time, justice, and urban nature:
procedural barriers to multi-species
flourishing
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Josephine Gillespie , Dan Penny & Rebecca Hamilton
This paper explores the ways in which urban green and blue spaces are beset by problematic
governing processes that reinforce an unrepresentative and unjust environmental narrative. In efforts
to operationalise Nature Based Solutions this is problematic for, ultimately, law may act to ‘freeze’the
environmental narratives that shape our urban ecosystems. In many cases the results will not
adequately recognise multiple species or provide an adequate basis to learn from the self-organised
resilience of ecosystems with a long history in place. In this paper we use an Australian case study to
demonstrate that a once extensive plant community that was extirpated over the past 150 years is now
unknown and unrepresented in environmental law and policy, despite its value for Nature Based
Solutions. We suggest that modest regulatory change can act as a vehicle for more-than-human
representation within existing decision-making processes. Improved representation of disrupted and
marginalised ecologies may achieve the functionality needed for effective Nature Based Solutions and
allow urban ecologies to flourish.
In the context of increasing urbanisation globally, there is a growing
awareness of the importance of building or conserving articulated terrestrial,
aquatic and wetland systems in cities (here referred to collectively as urban
green-blue spaces or UGBSs), due to the key role they play in public health
and well-being1, climate disaster mitigation2, stormwater and water quality
management3, biodiversity protection4and diverse cultural and aesthetic
benefits5. This awareness is reflected in the United Nations Sustainable
Development Goal 11, which aims to future-proof cities with improved
green public spaces. Relatedly, the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration
(2021–2030) has led to projects such as UNEP’s (United Nations Envir-
onmental Program) ‘Generation Restoration Cities’(https://www.
decadeonrestoration.org/cities) The UNEP project (2023–2025) is ‘dedi-
cated to reversing the tide of ecological degradation in urban areas’through
implementing urban nature-based solutions (NbS)6–10. NbS learn from, or
mimic, the self-organising functionality of ‘natural’systems to address
socio-ecological challenges and create resilient, adaptable environments that
are sustainable over the long-term6. The holistic aim of these programs is to
enhance urban biodiversity, meet obligations under the Kunming-Montreal
Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and, simultaneously, build resilience
in cities. We emphasise the distinction between resilience and sustainability,
the latter of which here is taken to mean the adaptive processes of creating
and maintaining ecosystem services through integrated social, environ-
mental, economic and governance actions11. It follows that urban sustain-
ability is dependent on resilient UGBS, and that UGBS are important
locations in which NbS interventions are likely to yield significant co-
benefits7.
Co-benefits of NbS are frequently expressed as ecosystem services that
benefit humans. This has resulted in distributive inequalities, whereby the
benefits and disadvantages of NbS are not shared equally between human
and more-than-human stakeholders. Multi-species justice (MSJ) becomes
an important perspective for identifying and addressing these distributive
injustices at a conceptual and practical level12–16. MSJ sees humans as part of,
and dependent upon, urban ecologies that incorporate more-than-humans.
This is relational and holistic, reflecting the complex reality of the socio-
ecological systems we, as a species, have helped create and now must manage
sustainably in the face of systemic change16,17. Despite this, the aegis of justice
has, traditionally, not covered more-than-humans or their communities, in
large part due to practical and conceptual challenge of giving adequate voice
to their interests (agency) in human decision-making processes18.How
more-than-human representation and agency might be achieved in urban
environments where ‘nature’is disrupted and contested, is an area of active
and vigorous experimentation19,20.
Australians are among the most urbanised people on earth: 90% of
Australians live in cities21. Because of this, the challenges associated with
conserving, restoring or creating resilient, sustainable and just UBGS are
acute. UGBS are critical to human wellbeing and enhance the vibrancy and
resilience of city environments. These spaces provide crucial environmental
services for human communities and a habitat refuge for more-than-human
The University of Sydney, School of Geosciences, Camperdown, NSW, Australia. e-mail: Josephine.gillespie@sydney.edu.au
npj Urban Sustainability | (2025) 5:17 1
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communities22. While progress from research in urban biodiversity has been
significant, there is still much to do, including improving our understanding
of ecological connectivity in space and time and the flow-on impacts for
species abundance4. For some vulnerable species, cities are a refuge. A recent
assessment of the distribution of threatened species in Australian cities
indicates that urban locations can be veritable ‘hotspots’for many species,
including many threatened species23.
There are many national, state and local strategies that aim to increase
the viability of biodiversity within Australian cities. One example is the
‘Biodiversity-in-Place’initiative of the New South Wales state Government
Architect to improve urban biodiversity in NSW24.‘Biodiversity-in-Place’
suggests that one key element in efforts torethink UGBS habitat renewal in
an Australian setting is to avoid ideas associated with ‘rewilding’that
influences some narratives about urban greening globally. As they point out,
in an Australian setting, Indigenous communities have been managing land
and waterscapes for tens of millennia. Biodiversity initiatives in Australian
UGBS, and particularly restoration efforts as one aspect of the NbS fra-
mework, can be challenged by a lack of foundational data and the degree to
which the systems have been modified by urbanisation. UBGS are often
heavily degraded, highly contested and vulnerable to projected environ-
mental change25. Restoration to achieve NbS requires a baseline assessment
of ecosystem status and identification of evidence-based targets against
which progress toward biodiversity conservation outcomes can be assessed
[8, Criterion 3]. This can be problematic in urban environments as most
ecosystems are heavily modified from their baseline condition and knowl-
edge of baseline condition is either inadequate or missing26,27.Thisraises
specific questions about what ‘success’looks like in urban NbS, who decides
what belongs, and how such decisions are made. These questions are critical,
because NbS approaches require adequate integrated institutional and legal
frameworks and governance structures7–9.
In this paper we draw attention to the ways in which UBGS config-
urations are beset by problematic procedural and institutional frameworks
that do not adequately address distributive injustices or permit multi-species
representation in decision making. Such a lack of representation can
compromise efforts towards achieving inclusive and sustainable NbS in
cities.
We argue that a critical problem in efforts to address UGBS renewal is
the lack of integration between procedural decision making by key bodies, in
turn informed by law, and long-term environmental data that enable us to
discover what ‘flourishing’ecosystems look like, how they are composed,
and how they function over the long-term. Using a case from a former
‘natural’but now highly modified wetland environment of inner-eastern
Sydney, Australia, we consider two critical elements for policy reform. The
first is to consider the role of law in appointing experts to determine ‘what’
belongs ‘where’in efforts to secure NbS for UGBSs. In a similar way to
Mata28 we urge more inclusive decision-making processes and point out the
limitations of existing regulatory obligations that restrict this endeavour.
Our second consideration outlines how environme ntalh istories can provide
an evidence-based assessment of ecosystem status in highly degraded urban
ecosystem, and act as a form of multi-species representation for margin-
alised, disrupted ecologies. Again, Mata28 in relation to ‘bringing nature
back’to cities, also call for a longer-term perspective. With these twinned
considerations in mind, we explore problems associated with a rigidity in
regulatory processes which emphasise a narrow scientific perspective, which
do not provide adequate agency or representation to more-than-human
stakeholders, and which are not consistent with global standard for nature-
based solutions (Criteria 5.3, 8.2)8.
The Botany Wetlands are a network of modified coastal freshwater
wetlands in the inner suburbs of Sydney, a remnant of a formerly extensive
wetland system that was significantly reduced in area and character during
the 19th century (Fig. 1)29. The wetlands were an important component of
the landscape and played a central role in Sydney’s industrial and domestic
water supply until the 1880s30.
Today the wetlands are surrounded by urban green space, including
Centennial Park, and several private and public golf clubs that lease the land
from Sydney Water Corporation, the managing authority. The lower end of
the system, where the system discharges into Kamay Botany Bay, is partly
built over by Sydney Airport and is managed by the Commonwealth
Government. The value of this system is primary expressed in terms of
ecosystems services for humans and, indeed, there are significant human
health and wellbeing benefits associated with access to open space31.
Accordingly, public access to Botany Wetlands has been identified as a
priority project by the Office of the Government Architect of NSW in the
Sydney Green Grid report, part of the Greater Sydney Region and District
Plans. In addition to the human health benefits, the wetlands act as a natural
filter for stormwater runoff from a highly urbanised catchment, improving
surface water quality and acting as a passive flood detention basin.
These diverse ecosystems services meant that Sydney’sUGBSare
valued highly by human users and thus contested. Green spaces absorbed by
golf clubs have been a particular flash point32,reflecting the long-standing
global frustration regarding public access to urban green spaces33,34 and,
more conceptually, the contest between alternative ‘urban imaginaries’35.
TheexclusiveuseofUGBSsby‘elite’club’s cleanly exposes differential
power dynamics in urban politics, of social/spatial exclusion, and issues
surrounding ‘rights’to the city36,37.
Results
Theroleoflawandtheappointmentofscientificcommittees
Current environmental management policy and practice within the Botany
Wetlands is dominated by the requirement to protect and regenerate two
endangered ecological communities: Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub (ESBS)
and Sydney Freshwater Wetland (SFW) and the removal of invasive plant
species. These plant communities are listed as endangered or critically
endangered under national and states laws, being the Environmental Pro-
tection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999 (Commonwealth)
and the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 (NSW) (‘the Act’). Protection
and regeneration actions are identified as ‘high priority’(i.e., ‘action required
to avoid possible breach of legislation and prosecution’) in the 2018–2028
Plan of Management for the Botany Wetlands38. Plans include strategic
expansion of these protected communities. Importantly, the characteristic
species composition for these protected plant communities is defined by the
New South Wales Threatened Species Scientific Committee (NSW TSSC,
‘The Committee’), based largely on extant examples of these communities
and estimates of historical distributions39,40. We return to the problem
associated with inadequate scientific knowledge to support the regulatory
and policy framework below. In this section our aim is to consider how the
Committee is composed, and the ongoing influence the committee’scom-
position has for enabling or disabling MSJ.
The NSW TSSC is established pursuant to legislation, particularly
Division 7 of Part 4 of the Act. Under this provision the Committee is
established as a NSW Government Agency (s.4.38(2)), and is “not subject to
the control or direction of the Minister”(s.4.39). The Committee’score
function is to determine which species or ecological communities are to be
listed under the Act as extinct, extinct in the wild, or ‘threatened’(that is,
vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered) (section 4.40(1)).
The Committee consists of 11 members (s.4.41), four of whom are
scientists employed by the appropriate state or federal government
departments (at the time of writing these were the Office of Environment
and Heritage, the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, the Australian
Museum Trust, CSIRO, provisions 4.41(2)(a) –e)), as well as four scientists
who are employed by a NSW tertiary education institution (s.4.41(2)(f)(1)
or have been “nominated by a professional body principally involved in
ecological or invertebrate research”(s4.41(2)(f)(ii)). Expertise of the persons
appointed to the Committee is strictly prescribed in the Act, and exclusively
relates to aspects of either ecology or biology (Division 7 Part 4, section 3
(a –i)).
The procedure for listing species and ecological communities to a
threatened list is set out in Division 3 of the Biodiversity Conservation Act
2016 (NSW) (aside from provisional listings which are dealt with pursuant
to Division 4). It is the responsibility of the Committee to determine the
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-025-00207-x Article
npj Urban Sustainability | (2025) 5:17 2
listing of species and ecological communities (Division 3, s.4.9) which are set
out in Schedules 1, 2 and 3 of the Act. Assessment is based on the available
data and the Committee can, if necessary, make use of consultants or obtain
advice outside of the Committee, althoughthereisnoobligationtodoso.In
cases where there is insufficient data, the nomination is considered to be
‘data-deficient’, not accepted for listing, and may be referred to the data-
deficient management stream41. In determining nominations for listing, the
Committee makes both a preliminary (s.4.13) and final determination
(s.4.15) and must provide reasons for their determination (s.4.15(1) and
(2)).ItistheCommitteethatdetermine which species or communities
‘belong’. They thus play an influential role in the character of land and
waterscapes.
Understanding how the law determines who decides what is protected
isoftenanoverlookedelementinthinking about how land and waterscapes
take shape. In outlining the regulatory framework for the appointment to
and processes of the Committee, who as a group, are ultimately responsible
for deciding what ‘belongs’in this case in a highly modified urban green
space, it becomes clear that there is an ‘expertise bottleneck’.Byvirtueof
Division7Part4,section3(a–i), the composition of the Committee is
dominated by biologists and ecologists. We are not suggesting that this is an
erroneous approach or that any individual or group nominations are pro-
blematic, and we want to maintain that these specialist scientific perspectives
are vital to the conservation evaluation process. Ecologists can advocate for
more-than-human species and communities as well as any other human
could. However, the current disciplinary focus of the Committee does
encourage abstraction of species from the larger socio-ecological systems in
which they exist and away from the deeply relational perspective required to
achieve multi-species justice in decision making. The strict legislative lim-
itations on the core expertise available to the Committee can act as a
potential constraint upon inclusive, transparent and empowering govern-
ance processes as required under the Global Biodiversity Framework
(Targets 21-23) by the IUCNs global standard for Nature Based Solutions
(Criterion 5, particularly 5.3, 5.4).
In termsof improving multispecies representation, widening the terms
of appointment to the Committee would allow complimentary and con-
tradictory perspectives, including better multi-species representation within
the decision-making processes as an example of the sort of deliberative,
institutionalised multi-species justice advocated by Celermajar and others12.
This might take the form of an advocate for more than human stakeholders
as a standing member of the Committee, akin to the advocacy provided by
the Birrarung Council on behalf of the Birrarung Yarra River in Melbourne,
Australia42. We suggest that achieving MSJ is predicated on ensuring more
diverse representation and, in the practice of this, in attending to who
decides what belongs is a small first step. While much of the MSJ literature
has considered theoretical and conceptual problems, including the impor-
tant concern about not replicating past injustices, especially in relation to
silencing minority voices (particularly Indigenous voices, see for
example13–15,18) our concern is more pragmatic as we reflect on how existing
regulatory and policy settings can be re-drafted with more inclusivity in
mind. Inclusive conservation in contested UGBSs requires a more critical
and thoughtful approach and, in this one example, movement towards
wider expertise/perspectives in the appointment of Committee membership
Lachlan Swamp
Botany Wetlands
Sydney
K
amay
B
otany
Bay
Port
Jac
kson
Tasman
S
ea
A
ustra
li
a
Fig. 1 | Map of Eastern Sydney, Australia. Modern distribution of Eastern suburbs
Banksia Scrub (ESBS) as at 2013 is shown in dark red, © State Government of NSW
and NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
2015. Presumed pre-European (“1788”) distribution of ESBS between Kamay Bot-
any Bay and Port Jackson, shown in pink, is based on Figure 4 p. 685 of Benson and
Howell40, scanned and geo-registered using QGIS 3.40.0. Sample locations (‘core
sites’) from which materials were collected for this analysis are also shown. Estimated
extent of wetlands 1820–1853 shown in blue29. The stark difference between the ‘pre-
Industrial’distribution and the current distribution of this plant community is
claimed to reflect severe range collapse, as described in the main text. Base layer data
©State of New South Wales through Regional NSW 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-025-00207-x Article
npj Urban Sustainability | (2025) 5:17 3
is warranted. Legislation can be changed. Making the committee mem-
bership less restrictive in the Act opensopportunitiesforbetterrecognition
of a range of interests. Many more voices could, or should, be heard,
including potentially the voices of plants and animals of the present
(through their representatives) and of the past through, for example, inte-
gration of historical ecology29, palaeo-ecological data and the broader
environmental and earth sciences30,43–49. Legislative change (specifically, to
Division7Part4,section3(a–i) of the Act) might enable more diverse
perspectives including representatives of more-than-human stakeholders,
that may facilitate the institutionalisation of MSJ concerns and better (more
just) outcomes in UGBS. The potential to improve representation in
decision-making processes is vital for UGBS managers in steps towards
incorporating multispecies considerations. It will not be easy, but the first
step is opening up the chance to be heard.
In this section we are pointing out that potential multi-species
representation in decision making process is stifled by the Act, which
emphasises one particular form of scientific knowledge and valuation in
decision making. Once listed under the Act following recommendations
from the Committee, those species/communities are protected by law
and all subordinate policy that relates to them must conform to this. In
this way, some species or communities are permitted to remain, while
others are actively excluded or prevented, reinforcing a particular per-
spective or narrative about what belongs in highly modified UGBS. A
collateral outcome of this phenomenon is to ‘freeze’urban ecologies and
to prevent successional change toward, for example, novel or hybrid
ecosystems that might be more resilient to climate change50.Itiswell
established that governance arrangements can engender a ‘regulatory
sclerosis’that can compromise adaptive responses to disruption or
shock51–53. In this highly contested, modified and urbanised setting, we
further argue that vegetation communities with a long history in situ are
potentially more resilient than those that have been identified by the
Committee because they have persisted through natural and anthro-
pogenic perturbation for thousands of years and are better able to tol-
erate future change in those locations. This century of disruption is
making urban renewal toward a more-resilient state both necessary and
desirable. One way of unpacking what belongs where is to turn to the
past. Long-term historical ecologies are called for44–49. In the next section
we expose how the Committee can work to freeze UGBS through
nomination and listing processes that do not take adequate account of
environmental histories.
The missing environmental history story or ‘How the Eastern
Suburbs Banksia Scrub Became Protected’
The listing of ESBS by the Committee as Critically Endangered under NSW
law was based on an assessment that the plant community had suffered a
very large reduction in distribution since the pre-Colonial period (which the
Committee refer to as the ‘pre-industrial era’). The pre-Colonial distrib ution
of this plant community is not known, and estimates rely heavily on the
mappeddistributionofsoillandscapesasproxiesforitsformer
distribution40.
TheCommitteenoteintheirfinal determination (2017)54 however
that, while the current disjunct distribution of ESBS is strongly correlated
with particular soil types, it is not restricted to them. Uncertainty with
respect to the ‘pre-industrial’distribution of ESBS led the Committee to
propose a very large possible range, from a minimum of 5355 ha to a
maximum of 9643 ha. This is significantly greater than the estimate of c.
2500 ha55,56. Benson and Howell40 also used soil landscapes as a proxy for the
“presumed 1788”(p. 685) distribution of ESBS but noted with some caution
that some 1788 community ranges are “essentially land units made up of
several groupings of plant species, termed plant communities associated
with a particular geologic or physiographic type”(p.681). Whatever the case,
the current distribution represents a significant decrease from the pre-
industrial distribution, in the order of a 91.2–97.4% reduction54 (Fig. 1). It is
based on this hypothesised reduction in geographic distribution (Clause 4.9
of the Biodiversity Conservation Regulation 2017, a subordinate instrument
under the obligations of the Act) that ESBS was listed as Critically
Endangered.
ESBS is difficult to describe (or proscribe) precisely, with many of its
characteristic plant species occurring in similar communities in adjacent
areas, such that the Committee describe it as “oneofacomplexofrelated
communities”54 that vary in composition and structure in response to (inter
alia)soildepth,fire regime, soil nutrient status, and maritime influence. This
makes precise mapping of contemporary community distributions
problematic40 and pre-Colonial distributions virtually impossible. Yet, the
listing of threatened ecological communities does not permit such ambi-
guity, and the Comittee were, perforce, required to stipulate a species
assemblage that propagated to all subordinate policy and, ultimately, to on-
the-ground actions that encourage certain species and exclude others.
These approaches to defining the composition of ‘pre-Industrial’
vegetation communities (based on heavily degraded vegetation commu-
nities as they appeared in the latter part of the 20th century), and former
ranges based on the conflation of degraded remnant communities with
specific soil types is obviously problematic and reflects a critical lack of
informationonhistoricalconditionsand environmental history. This is, in
part, a reflection of a lack of appropriate empirical data when the decisions
were made, and in part a reflection of the ‘expertise bottleneck’forced upon
the Committee by the Act.
Our geo-historical data (see Fig. 2, Methods and Supplementary
Information) suggest that ESBS as a community or species assemblage, and
indeed some species listed by the Committee as dominant within ESBS, were
not apparent in eastern and southern Sydney prior to the 20th century. The
titular genus Banksia (the Committee list four species as dominant in most
forms of ESBS54) contributes an average of 0.7% of the total pollen sample
population at a wetland site that was hydrologically connected to the Botany
Wetlands (Lachlan Swamp29,57)uptothe20
th century and there are only four
occurrences of the pollen from the genus prior to ~1856. Approximately
4 km south in the proposed pre-Colonial range of ESBS, in the Botany
Wetlands, Banksia is even more poorly represented (an average of 0.2% of
the total pollen sample), with the first occurrence in ~1849. Under-
representation of the genus in community-level pollen signatures might be
anticipated given its conservative pollen dispersal strategies58 but the
sporadic appearance of its pollen in sediments deposited in the centre of the
pre-Colonial range of ESBS is noteworthy.
Of more significance is the former dominance of Ericaceae (heath)
pollen at both sites into the 19th century, most probably derived primarily
from the heath genus Sprengelia (S. incarnata Sm., or pink swamp heath,
based on taxonomic analysis of the pollen; Wang et al., under review).Pollen
from this family is abundant in the sediment at both sites, dominating the
pollen assemblage until 1832 in the Botany Wetlands (an average of 25.8% of
the total pollen assemblage until that time), and until 1856 at Lachlan
Swamp (an average of 18.7% of the total pollen assemblage) (Fig. 2).
Sprengelia is not listed by the Committee as part of the characteristic ESBS
species assemblage, yet its clear dominance within the ‘pre-Industrial’range
of ESBS to the middle of the 19th century appears to indicate the widespread
occurrence of an ecological community that was floristically and structurally
different from ESBS. Pollen derived from rushes (Restionaceae) follow a
similar pattern over time to the swamp heath, suggesting that the wetlands
and drainage lines –much more extensive in the early 19th century than they
are today29 - supported a community that was floristically different from the
sedge-dominated (Cyperaceae) Sydney Freshwater Wetlands threatened
ecological community that occurs there today. Pollen from grasses (Poa-
ceae) increase in abundance toward the present day, particularly after the
early-mid 20th century. This is particularly notable in the Botany Wetlands,
where a dramatic increase in grass pollen (modelled from c.1935) likely
coincides with the establishment of The Lakes golf club and course –which
demarcates the western edge of the wetlands - in 1928.
Our data demonstrate the presence of one or more floristically and
structurally distinct ecological communities within the core range of ESBS
that were extirpated during the 19th century and are now unknown and
unrepresented in conservation and management strategies. There are three
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-025-00207-x Article
npj Urban Sustainability | (2025) 5:17 4
points of significance: first, any attempt to restore ‘resilience’to these inner
UGBSsbyadoptingNbSapproachestoland management that mimic, or are
inspired by, self-organising natural systems will fall short of expectations if
long-term ecological data are not available or are ignored by policy makers
whose expertise may be too narrowly defined by law. Second, degraded and
disrupted remnant vegetation communities in urban spaces should not be
accepted as an adequate baseline or reference condition on which to base
nature repair or ecological restoration policy. Third, the assumptions that
underpin ‘range collapse’in this specific threatened ecological community
(particularly the use of soil types or landscape units as proxies for the
presumed ‘pre-impact’distribution) can be empirically disproved, threa-
tening the basis used by the Committee for listing the community as
endangered or critically endangered.
Management operations can become compromised by inadequate
data. In our example, the characteristic species composition of the endan-
gered plant communities extant in the Botany Wetlands has been defined by
the NSW Threatened Species Scientific Committee. This decision is based
largely on extant examples of these communities and partial and largely
descriptive historical accounts (particularly Benson and Howell’shighly
generalised 1994 map of the ‘pre-European’flora40). This map appears to be
profoundly compromised by a simplification of community diversity and
presumptions of continuity over spacebasedonthemappingofnative
vegetation as it was in 198239,40. Long-term ecological and environmental
data of adequate fidelity to be meaningful for management practice do not
exist, and narrative descriptions of ‘pre-impact’ecosystems are not sup-
ported by empirical evidence. In this context, palaeo-ecological data could
act as form of representation in decision making for ecological communities
that have been disrupted and marginalised by urbanisation over the past
century. Equally, this information can guide NbS interventions that truly
learn from the self-organising capacity of ecosystems with a long history of
flourishing in place.
Discussion
The benefits of resilient UGBS in Australia’s cities are well-known, well-
established, and permeate all relevant policy and practice at all levels of
government. UGBS are thus important locations in which NbS interven-
tions can yield multiple co-benefits to many stakeholders. The capacity to
mimic or learn from nature in these settings is, however, compromised by
the profound transformations they have experienced. Here, we demonst rate
that ecological communities that have been spatially marginalised, degraded
or extirpated by urbanism offer valuable guidance for NbS interventions in
high-value UGBS. However, current regulatory settings prioritise particular
scientific perspectives and do not make space for deliberative multi-species
justice representations. We suggest that palaeo-ecological data, such as those
presented here, might be used to represent more-than-human interests in
decision making, and suggest modest regulatory change that widens the
range of voices considered in decision making to institutionalise MSJ per-
spectives. Such an approach can support the restoration and sustainable
conservation of urban ecosystems within a NbS framework that is coherent
with MSJ perspectives. Ultimately, this ensures sustainable management of
key environmental services for humans and enables more-than-human
species to flourish.
Adaptive management informed by NbS’swillbenefitthecommunity
now and into the future. In Australia it is recognised nationally, and
throughout the states and territories, that resilient UGBS are crucially
important for successful urban futures. In our case study site, urban
development in the suburbs surrounding the Botany Wetlands will make
this area the most densely population part of Australia, with population
densities located less than 1300 m from the wetland corridor exceeding that
of Hong Kong59. Increasing tension over exclusion from and access to UGBS
in the context of high and rising population density makes management of
these sites complex and may encourage management authorities toward
conservative approaches that emphasise stability and precedent in policy
settings. Sustainable management of UGBSs such as the Botany Wetlands
becomes both challenging and crucial under these circumstances. Globally,
there is a broader recognition that UGBSs are disproportionately important
in conserving threatened species and that cities can be hotspots of
biodiversity23.
As we move further into a century of environmental disruption, it is
necessary to reevaluate sustainability in our cities. Thinking is shifting
toward new ways of occupying our cities through a coming century of
climatic disruption. In this paper we draw attention to a twinned problem
for actioning NbS in UGBSs - law’s operational rigidity and the importance
of understanding places according to their spatial and temporal pasts. We
argue that this case study shows that better representation of the past and
greater stakeholder input via reform to existing regulatory mechanisms
might enable society to give greater consideration to the MSJ implications in
UGBS renewal projects.
10
10 10 20 30 40 1010 20 3010 20 30 4020 20 10 20 30 10
Banksia
Banksia
Heath (Ericaceae)
Grasses (Poaceae)
Grasses (Poaceae)
Rushes (Restionaceae)
Rushes (Restionaceae)
Heath (Ericaceae)
Abundance (% of pollen sum)
Bota nyW etlands
Lachlan Swamp grassy Banksia scrub
rush-heath complex
NSW TSCC established
1780
1800
1820
1840
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
Age (yrs C.E.)
Fig. 2 | Plot of selected pollen taxa against time from two sites within the pre-
colonial range of Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub. See Method and Supplementary
Information.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-025-00207-x Article
npj Urban Sustainability | (2025) 5:17 5
Methods
Field sampling procedure, laboratory pre-treatment for pollen extraction,
and protocols for data analysisanddecompositionfollow
30 and57.
To construct an independent chronology for the pollen sequence from
theBotanyWetlands,thepollensequence(basedoncoreAofthereplicate
set) and absolute radiometric dates (based on core B of the replicate set), two
cores had to be objectively correlated. A sequence slotting approach was
used to correlate the two cores60 based on the magnetic susceptibility profiles
for both cores. Magnetic susceptibility was measured using a Bartington
MS3 meter with a MS2E sensor61 at 1 cm resolution (P5_04_19_A n= 119,
P5_04_19_B n= 116) via the Bartsoft platform (v. 4.2.16). Instrument
accuracy was evaluated using a supplied reference material (#331, agreed
value = 460 × 10−5SI). Nine measurements yielded an average value of
448.43 × 10−5SI, 97.48% accuracy. Triplicate measurements were taken at
each depth level in the cores (2 second measurement time for each mea-
surement), with blank measurements before and after each triplicate and
auto drift correction enabled. The average of those measurements for each
depth level is shown in Supplementary Fig. 1 and was used as the basis for
the core correlation.
CPLSlot v. 2.4b62 was used for sequence slotting. In addition to the
magnetic susceptibility data, stratigraphic boundaries common to both
cores were imposed as constrains on the slotting procedure (Supplementary
Table 1). From this, known position (depth) of dated horizons in Core B
were then used to identify estimated positioninCoreA,whichactasabasis
for chronological modelling of Core A (Supplementary Fig. 2).
Chronological modelling was performed with Bacon63 using R version
4.4.164 in R Studio 2024.09.0 +37565. The chronological model for
P5_04_19_A (Supplementary Fig. 4, Supplementary Information) was
based on six 210Pb ages and one bio-stratigraphic age (consistent appearance
of pollen from exotic plants in the sequence) at 80 cm depth and given an age
of 1852 ± 12.5 years C.E30. Several stratigraphic hiatuses were imposed for
this core, corresponding to stratigraphicboundariesat22.5(lowerboundary
Unit 1), 73 (lower boundary Unit 2) and 80 cm (lower boundary Unit 3)
depth in core. The chronological model for core LSB2 (Supplementary Fig.
3) was based on eight 210Pb ages, one 137Cs marker horizon (first appearance
of this isotope at these latitudes in the southern hemisphere), two bio-
stratigraphic ages based on the appearance of pollen from pine (1865 C.E.)
and fig (1888 C.E.), and one 14C age (Beta-284319) calibrated using the
SHCal20 curve57,66.Pollendata
30,57 were replotted with the updated chron-
ological models using C2 1.7.767.
Data availability
Data that supports the findings of this study are available in the supple-
mentary information of the article, with the exception of previously pub-
lished data which are reanalysed here.
Received: 27 November 2024; Accepted: 8 April 2025;
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Sydney Environment Institute (The
University of Sydney), and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology
Organisation. We would like to acknowledge the support of Sydney Water
Corporation, Centennial and Moore Park Trust, and Eastlakes Golf Club.
Additionally, we acknowledge the Gadigal and Bidjigal people, on whose
ancestral lands this work took place.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-025-00207-x Article
npj Urban Sustainability | (2025) 5:17 7
Author contributions
J.G., D.P., and R.H. wrote the main manuscript text. J.G., D.P. and R.H.
conducted fieldwork. D.P. and R.H. conducted laboratory analysis and
prepared figures and supplementary information. All authors reviewed the
manuscript.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Supplementary information The online version contains
supplementary material available at
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-025-00207-x.
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to
Josephine Gillespie.
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