Emery writes about the Future of Cities. shareing previously unpublished imagery inside Whitelies Magazine

Excerpt: As a teenager I came across the works of naturalist, artist and author Joy Adamson, who wrote: ‘Since we humans have the better brain, isn’t it our responsibility to protect our fellow creatures from, oddly enough, ourselves? Wildlife is something which man cannot construct. Once it is gone, it is gone forever. Man can rebuild a pyramid, but he can’t rebuild ecology, or a giraffe.’ At age 18 inspired by Adamson’s commitment to wildlife conservation I moved to a small island in Southeast Sulawesi, where my father had co-established a dive resort and marine reserve. At the time we were without internet or phone reception and only boat that came every two weeks to pick up and drop of guests and supplies. After two decades of collaborative conservation, Wakatobi is a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve with the highest number of reef and fish species in the world. When I think of Adamson’s words, I think at once of our role as protectors as well as architects of the world we inhabit. Beyond re-adapting the way we design our built environments, we need to formulate a vision of a place where human concentration can exist within a framework that remains engaged and connected to the natural systems that allow it to thrive. Rather than thinking of cities as machines that echo man’s technological prowess, we should think of them as organisms within a larger ecosystem that acknowledge the rights of the natural landscape into which we insert them. By reconciling what our cities can afford us, we can inhale a bigger picture of the world and ourselves within it.