Wildlife conservation is a topic of importance today. We are making many changes in our lives to be more 'green'. Whether it is the shampoo we choose, riding our bike to work or taking shorter showers, there are many 'green' options to help minimize our negative impact on our environment. Finding the balance between the ever evolving human developments and maintaining nature's habitats is a difficult and pressing responsibility that organizations all over the world work to navigate every day.

Ecoducts are one of the many solutions that help to bridge that balance. They're structures that allow wildlife to cross man-made barriers, such as highways, safely. Habitat fragmentation, the division or separation of natural habitats by human development, is a threat to wildlife and these ecoducts allow the connection or reconnection of habitats that have been separated by our infrastructures.

There are many benefits that result from ecoducts, for both the environment and humans. The animals get to safely cross over the barriers and it connects habitats to help them thrive and sustain themselves. Vehicle accidents decrease as animals can safely cross over highways. That's beneficial to animal populations as well as helping to avoid human injury and property damage from these collisions.

These structures are not a new practice, the first being built in France in the 1950s. However, within the past 30 years, many more are being built in the US, Canada, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. The US Humane Society has reported that structures such as these ecoducts, as well as wildlife tunnels built under roadways, have increased the population of the endangered European Badger in the Netherlands. This is great evidence that development can utilize specific solutions that are not only cohesive to our cities and transportation routes, but also beneficial to local wildlife and their habitats.

Ecoducts are just one wonderful way to help protect our environment and add some beautiful scenery to our man-made infrastructure. Your personal investments of individual "green" choices are equally as important to the preservation of our environment. If you happen to be in the region, be sure to visit an ecoduct in Europe or in Banff National Park. Their popularity is consistently growing and we can only hope that they will become a regular part of our infrastructure landscape.