Renaturing cities: cooperation manifesto launched at the World Forum on Urban Forests
“Nature is often seen as a problem, here it is seen as the solution.” This sentence by Josefina Enfedaque may resume the sense of the 1st World Forum on Urban Forests that closed the month of November and opened December in Mantua on a deeply green note. The EC Senior Policy Officer, present at the invitation of URBAN GreenUp, participated in a number of gatherings related to NBS projects, which culminated, on November 30, in the launch of the first Nature-Based Solutions Cooperation Manifesto. At the Forum, whose title was “Changing the nature of cities: the role of Urban forestry for a green, healthier and happier future”, URBAN GreenUp was leader in fostering NBS projects. The Forum, organised by FAO, the Municipality of Mantua, the Italian Society of Silviculture and Forest Ecology (SISEF), and Politecnico di Milano, in four days hosted conference sessions, exchanges, meetings, focus discussions, and public events. On November 29 at the round table “Nature-Based solutions and the present”, Josefina Enfedaque, on behalf of the NBS Projects Cluster, gave a speech on “Transforming cities, enhancing well-being through Nature-Based solutions (NBS). The EU-led mission towards the urban green transformation”. She explained how NBS projects are funded by the EU Commission through the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, with the aim of bringing together cities, citizens, research institutes and industry to demonstrate Nature-Based Solutions and business models that can be scaled up and replicated in a joint effort towards a green urban transformation at a global scale. Being a researcher herself, she stressed the difficulties of having EU policies keep up with scientific innovation: “We are trying to let all the people involved to know what policies are going to be reviewed in the future, what new policies could be drafted, so we can have already scientists all over putting in place all this research or this data,” she said. Enfedaque insisted on the utilitarian aspect of Nature-Based Solutions, which must not be just decorative. “It’s not NBS if it doesn’t tackle the social, the environmental and the economy,” she stated. On the same occasion Enfedaque also anticipated the launch of the Nature-Based Solutions Cooperation Manifesto, which took place on November 30. The Manifesto, which aims at guiding the adoption of NBS by other cities, was presented and read in full by its initiator, URBAN GreenUp’s coordinator Raul Sanchez, who said: “We can’t solve our problems with the same thinking that created them.” His take is we need NBS to tackle some of the worst problems we created, “or at least the worst, climate change”. This manifesto, which can be signed online, is meant to show its signatories’ commitment to promote, research and implement Nature-Based Solutions. The presentation of the document was then followed by its signing by the projects present at the event (ThinkNature, Connecting Nature, ProGIreg, Nature4Cities, URBiNAT), as well as by Josefina Enfedaque herself and Adriana Nepote, Alderman for University, Research and Innovation at the Municipality of Mantua. URBAN GreenUP partners and other NBS projects’ representatives and speakers attended then to a panel on overcoming barriers and enhancing the benefits of Nature-Based Solutions. Read more: www.urbangreenup.eu/news--events/news/renaturing-cities-cooperation-manifesto-launched-at-the-world-forum-on-urban-forests.kl
Countries
Italy