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PARKS FOR THE PLANET FORUM

Past Program

May 30 - Jun 04, 2019 Session 620

Partnerships for Urban Wellbeing and Resilience: Harnessing Nature and Protected Areas for the Sustainable Development Goals

Overview

By 2050, over 75% of the world’s population will live in towns and cities. The equitable and sustainable design of urban environments will be fundamental in determining the state of the planet and the health of societies that we bequeath to future generations.

Since 2015, the Parks for the Planet Forum has forged a unique network committed to transformative leadership and action for health, nature and cities. The 2019 program catalyzed cross-sector understanding, shared agendas, and financial innovation for this purpose. It aimed to encourage policies, investments and partnerships to mainstream nature-rich areas, access to green space and healthy building design in and around cities as a critical contribution to human and planetary health.

The way we live, and our quality of life, are directly shaped by our environment. Design and investment for cities have far-reaching implications for billions. Today’s decisions on housing, technology, transport, and access to green space affect people’s health and well-being, the dynamics of communities and economies, and cities’ capacity to address the challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

All cities are intertwined with broader landscapes and seascapes. Many depend on protected areas and natural habitats for essential ecosystem services, including water supply and protection against natural disasters. Parks, protected areas, and green and blue infrastructure in and around urban areas provide major nature-based solutions for public health, climate change, and urban resilience, and can become cost-effective multipliers to achieve the SDGs.

Investors, sovereign wealth funds, real estate companies and the insurance and reinsurance industries will play a pivotal role in determining the level of priority given to health, nature and sustainability in urban development worldwide. Extraordinary potential could be unlocked by bringing key stakeholders from these sectors together with leaders in urban health, conservation, and new movements promoting more inclusive visions for cities of the future. 

Target Audience and Collaboration

The program brought together a group of 50 participants, combining thought leaders, innovators and policymakers from different regions and sectors with investors, and portfolio managers. It helped foster meaningful and ongoing relationships between stakeholders with different perceptions of urban health and well-being, and the role that nature can play in delivering multiple benefits for urban populations. 

Participants were drawn from the public, private and civil society sectors and included policymakers, conservationists, green building experts, investors, entrepreneurs, architects, engineers, designers, artists, media and academics.

Session Format

The residential program took place in the retreat-like setting of Schloss Leopoldskron, which facilitates trust, networking and in-depth conversations. The highly interactive program was structured around a mix of thought-provoking presentations, curated conversations, informal interactions, knowledge exchange, practical group work and innovation prototyping.  

The process sought to combine theory, policy and practice across sectoral silos, opening up new perspectives and intensive learning opportunities. Participants worked intensively in focus groups, allowing for intense explorations of specific aspects of the general themes before returning to the plenary to refine conclusions.

Key Questions

  • Which cities are shaping national responses to the Sustainable Development Goals and how are they achieving this?
  • What new kinds of partnership are needed or are emerging to raise awareness of the role that parks and protected areas play in ensuring the health and well-being of urban populations?
  • What is the current base line for ‘urban-green’ finance and investment, what is it overall urban investment and what are the challenges to wider take-up?
  • What should the institutional investor community be prioritizing in terms of health and well-being?
  • Where is the financial and investment leadership in healthier building design and better city planning coming from?
  • What concrete opportunities are there to amplify new approaches for the finance/investment sectors that can complement conservation-focused global meetings?

Program Goals

  • To develop understanding, awareness and shared agendas around the crucial role and benefits of nature for urban communities and encourage policies, investments and partnerships to mainstream nature-rich areas, access to green space and healthy building design in and around cities as a critical component of urban health and resilience.
  • To raise awareness and develop shared understanding across different sectors of the ways in which parks, protected areas and other nature-rich spaces in and around cities can provide major nature-based solutions to challenges of public health, climate change, and urban resilience.
  • To create a set of Salzburg Principles / or Salzburg Statement that could guide future engagement for those working on the social and economic determinants of health from a built environment or parks perspective
  • Share learning from the program through dynamic reporting (blogs, newsletters, a substantive report) with a broad, international group of stakeholders, and with the help of a media partner
  • Ultimately to contribute to the development of a set of evidence-based arguments through atypical coalitions that will promote major cross-sectoral change in policies, practice and financial closer alignment across a range of other conferences and convening opportunities to allow for the development of new thinking in this space throughout 2019.

Multi-Year Series

The Parks for the Planet Forum is a ten-year collaboration to reconnect people and nature in an urbanized world. Launched in 2015, it aims to improve human and societal well-being by expanding access to nature-rich urban spaces, increasing investments in urban conservation, and creating dynamic partnerships between people, cities, and protected area systems.

Participants

Wilson John Barbon
Myanmar Country Program Coordinator, International Institute of Rural Reconstruction, Myanmar
Alison Barnes
Trustee, National Park City Foundation, UK
Jonathan Bell
Director for Being Human Initiative, National Geographic Society, USA
Ioana Biris
Co-Owner, Nature Desks, Netherlands
Tim Blatch
Timothy Blatch, Consultant, AIPH, Zimbabwe
Subindra Bogati
Founder & CEO, Nepal Peacebuilding Initiative, Nepal
Kate Christen
Senior Manager, Smithsonian Conservation Commons, USA
Ingrid Coetzee
Senior Programme Manager of ICLEI's Cities Biodiversity Centre (CBC) and Senior Manager for Biodiversity and Nature-based Solutions at ICLEI-Africa, South Africa
Bernie Djonoputro
Chief Executive Officer, Rebana Metropolitan Authority, Indonesia
Hisham El-Zayat
Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Graduate Studies and Research, Alexandria University, Egypt
Assaf Frances
Director of Urban Policy, Zencity, Israel
Russell Galt
Head of Urban Alliance, IUCN, UK
Dolly Govender
Deputy Mayor, KwaDukuza Municipality, South Africa
Daniele Guglielmino
Senior Sustainability Specialist - Cities & Communities, Green Business Certification Inc., Italy
Angela Hof
Associate Professor, Department of Geography & Geology, University of Salzburg, Austria
Alex Hooker
Senior Program Officer at the Stephen D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation in San Francisco, California, USA
Keshav Jha
Assistant Manager (Energy & Climate), ICLEI South Asia, India
Eva Kail
Gender Expert in the Executive Group for Construction and Technology - Competence Centre Overall Urban Planning, Smart City Strategy, Participation, Gender Planning, City of Vienna, Austria
Vincent De Paul Kayanja
Mayor Entebbe Municipal Council and Chairman Lake Victoria Regional Local Authorities and Counties Cooperation, Uganda
Masumi Kikkawa
Project Manager, Ishi Planning & Design Co., Japan
Hirotaka Koike
Policy Researcher, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Japan
Barb Kuss
Executive Director, Huerta Niño Foundation, Argentina
Sung-gil Lee
Researcher, Institute of Environment and Ecology, Korea University, Republic of Korea
Leticia Lozano
Co-Founder & Director, MACIA Estudio, Mexico
Duncan Mackay
Principal Adviser, Urban and Peri-Urban Environments, Government Advice Team, Natural England, United Kingdom
Liteboho Makhele
Program Manager, Sustainable Cities, South African Cities Network, South Africa
Brian Mandell
Division Director of Curriculum & Communications, Smithsonian Institution, USA
Shirley Mathebula
Deputy Municipal Manager, City of uMhalthuze, South Africa
Maria Mejia
Lead, BiodiverCities by 2030 Initiative, Humboldt Institute, Colombia
Jayne Miller
CEO, Jayne Miller Consulting, USA
Jenia Mukherjee
Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India
Catherine Nagel
Executive Director of City Parks Alliance, USA
Andrea Oyuela
Architect and Urban Planner, Honduras
Itai Palti
Founder & Director, Hume, The Centre for Conscious Design, United Kingdom
Jin Su Park
Master's Candidate, London School of Economics, South Korea/England
Chris Purifoy
CEO, Learning Economy Foundation, United States of America
Daniel Raven-Ellison
Founder, National Park City Foundation / London National Park City, United Kingdom
Ana Rold
CEO & Publisher, Diplomatic Courier, USA
Moitreyee Sinha
CEO and Founder, citiesRISE, USA
Jackson Smith
Co-Founder & CTO, Learning Economy, USA
Esra Suel
Health Data Research Fellow, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Fimence Tan
Student, Hong Kong Univeristy of Science and Technology, China
Matthew Trowbridge
Associate Professor, University of Virginia School of Medicine, USA
Togo Uchida
Director, ICLEI Japan, Japan
Darlene Upton
Vice-President, Parks Canada, Canada
Jenny Wood
Co-director, Policy & Research, A Place in Childhood, United Kingdom
Michiko Yoneda
Assistant Manager, International Environmental Strategies Division of the City of Kitakyushu, Japan
Raphael Zikhali
Senior Councillor, Umhlathuze Municipality, South Africa

PARTNERS

Resources

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Arai, Yuko, and Daniel Levine. 2017. Kitakyushu Model Subsector: Interplay Between Solid Waste and Urban Flood Risk. Washington, DC: World Bank Group.

Avvisati, Francesco. 2019. “How Students and Parents Feel About the Future of the Environment.” OECD Education and Skills Today, April 24.

Chadsey, Matt, and Maree Grenfell. 2018. Building Urban Resilience with Nature: A Practitioner’s Guide to Action. New York: 100 Resilient Cities.

Cilliers, Juaneé, and Sarel Cilliers. 2016. Planning for Green Infrastructure: Options for South African Cities. Johannesburg: South African Cities Network.

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City Parks Alliance. 2018. Greater & Greener 2019: Exploring Natural Connections - An International Urban Parks Conference. Greatergreener.org.

Collins, Pamela, Helen Herrman and Moitreyee Sinha. 2019. Collective action for young people's mental health: the citiesRISE experience. World Psychiatry, 18: 114-115. 

Corbane, Christina, Pesaresi Martino, Politis Panagiotis, Florczyk J. Aneta, Melchiorri Michele, Freire Sergio, Schiavina Marcello, Ehrlich Daniele, Naumann Gustavo, and Kemper Thomas. 2018. “The Grey-Green Divide: Multi-Temporal Analysis of Greenness Across 10,000 Urban Centres Derived from the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL).” International Journal of Digital Earth: 1-18. 

Read more

Dell, Jan. 2019. “7 Ways for Cities to Reduce Plastic Pollution.” Meeting of the Minds, May 15.

Ebikeme, Charles, Franz Gatzweiler, Tolullah Oni, Jieling Liu, Andrea Oyuela, and José Siri. 2019. “Xiamen Call for Action: Building the Brain of the City—Universal Principles of Urban Health.” Journal of Urban Health: 1-3.

Ernst, Caryn, Peter Harnik, and Linda Keenan. 2018. Active Parks, Healthy Cities: Recommendations from the National Study of Neighborhood Parks. Washington, DC: City Parks Alliance.

Fedrizzi, Rick. 2015. Greenthink: How Profit Can Save the Planet. Austin: Disruption Books.

Florida, Richard. 2019. “The Beauty Premium: How Urban Beauty Affects Cities’ Urban Economic Growth.” CityLab, May 15.

Fusco Girard, Luigi. 2013. “Toward a Smart Sustainable Development of Port Cities/Areas: The Role of the ‘Historical Urban Landscape’ Approach.” Sustainability 5(10): 4329-4348.

Guardian Cities. 2018. “Darwin Comes to Town: How Cities are Creating New Species.” The Guardian, July 23.

Global Platform for Sustainable Cities [GPSC]. 2018. Urban Sustainability Framework (USF). 1st ed.Washington, DC: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank.  

Gottfried, David. 2014. Explosion Green: One Man’s Journey to Green the World’s Largest Industry. New York: Morgan James.

Hughes, Jonathan, Ed Taylor, and Tony Juniper. 2018. Living Cities: Towards Ecological Urbanism. Policy Futures Series No. 4. Edinburgh: Scottish Wildlife Trust.

Kamal-Chaoui, Lamia. 2019. “If Addressing Inequalities is the Target, are Cities the Bullseye?Meeting of the Minds, April 15.

McCracken, Deborah S., Deonie Anthea Allen, and Alan J. Gow. 2016. “Associations Between Urban Greenspace and Health-Related Quality of Life in Children.” Preventive Medicine Reports 3: 211-221.

Menon, Priya. 2018. Why youth in Chennai lose their bearingsThe Times of India. October 10.

Mukherjee, Jenia. 2018. “Indian Urban Trajectories: Addressing ‘Sustainability’ Across Micro-Political Settings.” In Sustainable Urbanization in India: Challenges and Opportunities, edited by Jenia Mukherjee, 1-22. Singapore: Springer.

Mukherjee, Jenia. 2016. “Sustainable Flows Between Kolkata and Its Peri-Urban Interface: Challenges and Opportunities.” In Untamed Urbanisms, edited by Adriana Allen, Andrea Lampis, and Mark Swilling, 33-49. London: Routledge.

Oyuela, Andrea, and Arnold van der Valk. 2017. “Collaborative Planning via Urban Agriculture: The Case of Tegucigalpa, Honduras.” Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 41:988-1008.

Oyuela, Andrea, and Pamela Carbajal. 2018. Compendium of Inspiring Practices: Health Edition— International Guidelines on Urban and Territorial Planning. Nairobi: United Nations Human Settlements Programme.

Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy. N.d. Restoring Pittsburgh Parks: The Urgent Need for Increased and Equitable Investment. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Parks.

Rifkin, Jeremy. 2015. The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Schwarz, Nina, Marco Moretti, Miguel N. Bugalho, Zoe G. Davies, Dagmar Haase, Hack, Jochen Hack, Angela Hof, Yolanda Melero, Tristan J. Pett, and Sonja Knapp. 2017. “Understanding Biodiversity-Ecosystem Service Relationships in Urban Areas: A Comprehensive Literature Review.” Ecosystem Services 27: 161–171.

Sinha, Moitreyee and Christopher Underhill. 2018  Lessons from the world's cities on protecting our mental health.World Economic Forum. January 11

Sinha, Moitreyee, Christopher Underhill and Lian Zeitz. 2016 Is Mental Health the New HIV?OZY. October 10. 

Smith, Monica L. 2019. Cities: The First 6,000 Years. New York: Viking.

Trowbridge, Matthew, Kelly Worden, and Christopher Pyke. 2016. “Using Green Building as a Model for Making Health Promotion Standard in the Built Environment.” Health Affairs 11: 2062-2067.

Trzyna, Ted. 2014. Urban Protected Areas: Profiles and Best Practice Guidelines—Developing Capacity for a Protected Planet. Best Practice Protected Area Guidelines Series No. 22. Gland, CH: International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

U.S. Green Building Council [USGBC]. 2019. LEED v4.1 Cities and Communities: Existing. Washington, DC: U.S. Green Building Council.

U.S. Green Building Council [USGBC]. 2019. LEED v4.1 Cities and Communities: Existing—Getting Started Guide for Beta Participants. Washington, DC: U.S. Green Building Council.

U.S. Green Building Council [USGBC]. 2019. LEED v4.1 Cities and Communities: Plan and Design. Washington, DC: U.S. Green Building Council.

U.S. Green Building Council [USGBC]. 2019. LEED v4.1 Cities and Communities: Plan and Design—Getting Started Guide for Beta Participants. Washington, DC: U.S. Green Building Council.

U.S. Green Building Council [USGBC]. N.d. “LEED for Cities.” Washington, DC: U.S. Green Building Council.

Vink, Jacques, Piet Vollard, and Niels de Zwarte. 2017. Making Urban Nature. Rotterdam: Nai010 Publishers.  

Weber, Viktor. 2019. “Smart Cities Must Pay More Attention to the People Who Live in Them.” World Economic Forum, April 16.

Wood, Jenny. 2017. “Planning for Children’s Play: Exploring the ‘Forgotten’ Right in Welsh and Scottish Policy.” Town Planning Review 88 (5): 579-602.

World Urban Parks. N.d. “World Urban Parks Endorsement: Mexico Agenda 2025.” Wellington, NZ: World Urban Parks Incorporated.

World Urban Parks. N.d. “Melbourne Statement: Future of Spaces and Places in Cities.” Wellington, NZ: World Urban Parks Incorporated.

Yudelson, Jerry. 2008. Marketing Green Building Services: Strategies for Success. 1st ed.Hoboken: Taylor & Francis.