Last month, on December 3, we had the pleasure of attending the conference “The strategy of trees – urban forestation and green belts” promoted by the Metropolitan City of Naples, in the Church of Saints Demetrius and Boniface, for the municipal strategy named “Oxygen Common Good”.
We decided to participate in this day in line with our research projects, protection and enhancement of urban biodiversity.
Coming to the report of the day, after the ritual greetings of the Mayor Luigi de Magistris and the deputy mayor Salvatore Pace – main responsible for the conception and organization of the Conference and, always, a staunch defender of biodiversity – several talks, of researchers, professors, technicians and administrators, followed. The main focus of the discussion was the role of urban green areas in mitigating all that series of problems related to climate change and global change (such as increase in temperatures and extreme weather events, incidence of fine dusts and increase in pathologies connected to it, etc.). Among the various interesting talks, some topics were treates in depth.
The first speaker, dr. Sannino, ENEA researcher, had the task of illustrating the worrying climatic forecasts for what concerns the Mediterranean area, thus introducing all the other speeches that came later and that dealt with the effect urban green positively impactinng on the effects of this change. Subsequently, numerous experts alternated many presentations that dealt with issues such as: the economic possibilities that can be created with urban reforestation strategies, the decontamination of polluted soils through the creation of forests, the role of exposure to urban green as a curative element for some pathologies, the role of phytoplankton and Posidonia in the production of oxygen, renaturalization interventions on the territory and much more.
The intervention that fascinated us the most was that of dr. Vacchiano, a researcher from the University of Milan, who inspired the audience by talking about fascinating design realities such as the Green Network of the city of London, the Urban Pollinators Project of Bristol, and also the network of hiking trails within the city of Berlin and the Bioblitz events taking place in Barcelona.
The objective of the meeting was to create a space for discussion on the theme of urban forestation in line with the interventions, financed or to be financed, by the Metropolitan City of Naples in a potentially successful urban green management strategy. It is hoped that after this very interesting day of confrontation, the administrative strategy of the city of Naples will then translate into concrete actions for the enhancement of urban and peri-urban green spaces.
