Two-thirds of humanity will live in cities by 2050, and achieving national sustainable development objectives and the SDGs depends on healthy and resilient cities. Responsible for around 75% of global CO2 emissions, cities are also at the forefront of fighting climate change while being particularly vulnerable to its impacts. Trees and forests in and around urban areas are simple and cost-effective nature based solutions to these challenges. They provide vital benefits for health and wellbeing, climate adaptation and mitigation, biodiversity, and resilience.

Sustainable urban forestry is needed to unlock these benefits, contributing not only to sustainable local development and quality of life, but also to achieving national objectives and global goals. Integrated long term planning and timely action is critical to unlock these multiple benefits, overcoming traditional silos and challenges faced by sustainable urgban forestry practitioners.

The Informal Network of Experts on Sustainable Urban Forestry provides a forum for knowledge exchange and capacity-building as well as peer to peer learning to strengthen sustainable urban forestry. This includes both horizontal engagement across disciplines and sectors, as well as vertical engagement with various levels of government to provide support to practitioners to identify, share, and adopt best practices and replicable solutions. By engaging a diverse group of stakeholders, it will also facilitate the identification of needed policy actions to enhance the enabling environment for sustainable urban forestry at the local, national, and regional levels.

Interested in being part of the Network? Express your interest to: [email protected].