As part of the November 21st episode of Unomattina, the Rai1 programme that reports on Italian and foreign current affairs without neglecting in-depth coverage of social agenda topics, reports and specials, Stefano Boeri is interviewed in the context of World Tree Day.
“It would be very fair to invest in this extraordinary natural resource that we have, being a country where more than thirty per cent of the land area is made up of forests. We often don’t know these woods, we don’t take care of them, and we also use them productively.
The problem we have today is that we must have more greenery in the cities. And for a simple reason: cities produce almost seventy-five per cent of the carbon dioxide that then accumulates in the atmosphere and generates the global warming that we suffer the consequences of; the level of the oceans rises; glaciers melt – sudden climatic phenomena like the ones we have experienced. Bringing greenery into cities means in some way going out and absorbing the carbon dioxide we have already produced. So it is a fundamental challenge. Trees also provide shade and thus help us feel better in the summer, even in relation to these tremendous heat waves we have seen in recent years.
But the great environmental issue cannot be separated from the great social issue. That is, we cannot think that
we are moving towards an ecological transition that rewards only those who are better off, those who are richer […] we must bring a better quality of life everywhere. And greenery, planting trees, creating forests in schools […] is fundamental because it means saying that what we want to do today is to address the idea of greener cities where, however, the green comes to everyone,” Stefano Boeri says.
The proposal by Stefano Boeri Architetti and AlberItalia that aims to create a large network of forests and ecological connections that physically unites urban and coastal areas with the large structure of forests and protected areas in Italy.
Parco Italia’s long-term vision is to plant a tree for every citizen of Italy’s 15 metropolitan cities: 22 million trees by 2040, so as to create a national network of ecological corridors capable of increasing and protecting biodiversity, expanding the presence of protected areas along the Peninsula.
To watch the full episode: https://www.raiplay.it/video/2023/11/UnoMattina—Puntata-del-21112023-c0b3d726-c3c2-4d91-89ab-97f14efc53bb.html