On Friday October 20th, the Cities Forum event was held, organised in coordination between the World Forum on Urban Forests (WFUF2023) and Bloomberg CityLab.
The day saw presentations and focus on best practices implemented by a number of international cities to incorporate vegetation and nature-based solutions into urban design with the aim of improving liveability.
Among the highlights:
h:9.10 | Tree Cities of the World Session | Hosted by Arbor Day Foundation
h:11.00 | Paving the way for a Global Urban Forestry Movement | among attendees, Ingrid Coetzee, ICLEI – Local Government for Sustainability
h: 13.00 | Accelerating Climate Action in Cities | Hosted by Bloomberg Associates
h:13.15 | Improving Access & Equity through Urban Forests | among attendees, Angela Tovar, Chief Sustainability Officer, City of Chicago
h:14.00 | Scaling Impact through Partnership | among attendees, Whitney Smith, Office of Sustainability, City of Detroit
The Forum was also attended by Lenio Myrivili, from UN Habitat, Kathy Baughman, director of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center at the Atlantic Council, who focused their speeches on equity and accessibility of green in cities; Paul Johnson (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) who explained how 2023 is an inflection point for urban forestry in the world; and Cecil Konijnendijk (Nature Based Solutions Institute) who emphasised the importance of data in monitoring urban forestry best practices, to set benchmarks of results towards which to strive.
The last day also saw the publication of the Washington D.C. Declaration, a document signed by all participants and organisers of the Forum, which sets out the goals for future urban design, such as equitable access to the benefits of green among urban residents worldwide, in the face of climate change and biodiversity loss; or the conservation, restoration, management and implementation of urban green infrastructure for the benefit of all.
Organised thanks to the collaboration of FAO, the Arbor Day Foundation, the United States Forest Service (USFS), the Smithsonian Institution, the Politecnico di Milano, the Italian Society of Silviculture and Forest Ecology (SISEF) and the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA), this second event – after the 2018 Forum held in Mantua – WFUF2023 has as its main theme Greener, Healthier and Happier Cities for All, to emphasise the importance of building inclusive cities in which the ecosystem goods and services of forests and trees are fairly and equally available to all city dwellers.
The event, of which Stefano Boeri Architetti is a technical partner, has Stefano Boeri as a member of the Scientific Committee.
The declaration was read out during WFUF by Livia Shamir, Senior Researcher at Stefano Boeri Architetti and researcher at the Politecnico di Milano.
Per maggiori informazioni: www.worldforumonurbanforests.org