Urban forests between challenges and opportunities

In face of the challenges brought by urbanisation and climate change, more and more experts are pointing to a simple yet extremely effective solution: nature. For this reason, cities across the world have started implementing urban forests to address many environmental issues. However, urban forests have even a greater potential: not only do they produce important benefits for the environment, but also for the economy and for people’s health and wellbeing. Thanks to their multi-disciplinary nature, urban forests are key allies in the achievement of many SDGs.

To explore the potential of urban forests for greener, healthier, and more sustainable cities, on the 15th of February 2023 Uforest held the hybrid event “Urban forests between challenges and opportunties”. Organised by Uforest’s partners Politecnico di Milano and ERSAF, with the support of Etifor, the event presented the Uforest project and its international Alliance on urban forestry. At the same time, this event discussed the potential of urban forests as innovative and effective Nature-based Solution for many environmental, social, and economic challenges. Finally, with the participation of international experts from the Uforest partnership, we explored new challenges and opportunities in the urban forestry sector. Among them, keynote speaker Nadina Galle from Green City Watch discussed about the use of technology in the management and development of urban forests.