Cities rally around nature in the quest to become more resilient

In Montreal, they’re building Canada’s largest urban park. Once complete, the 8,000-hectare nature sanctuary will be eight times as large as New York’s Central Park. In Bonn, green roofs are now mandatory for any surface larger than 200 square metres. And 100 cities across Europe are currently involved in over 1,000 nature-based best practice solutions as part of the Urban Nature Atlas initiative that has been created by NATUREVATION (NATure-based Urban innoVATION), a four-year project funded by the EU. These were just a few of the remarkable initiatives showcased in recent days at Daring Cities in two separate sessions: the first examining the inextricable ties between global warming and nature’s essential role in helping to mitigate climate change; the second focusing on how subnational governments are working to accelerate the revitalization of cities around the world, using nature as a catalyst for positive change. “Why is this (nature-based) agenda coming forward now?” asked Dr. Harriet Bulkeley, who is a Professor of Geography at Durham University in the UK as well as Coordinator with NATUREVATION. “I think it’s because cities are increasingly recognizing the need to protect nature, to restore it and for [nature] to thrive in the future,” a […]

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