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People and nature in an urban world

Humanity is facing an existential contradiction: we are building an urban future for ourselves, yet urbanisation in its current form is threatening the very future of humanity and the natural world. Urban growth is a seemingly unstoppable worldwide process.

Are cities Europe's new biodiversity hotspots?

While rummaging through part of Amsterdam's city park, citizen scientists discovered new insect species. Their aim was to show that even in Earth's busiest places, biodiversity is still underexplored.

Accidental countryside: why nature thrives in unlikely places

With its trees still naked after winter, Lordship Road in the London borough of Hackney is an urban vista of asphalt, brick and concrete. Heading north, a pair of tower blocks loom from the horizon.

Green Walls bridge gap between urban cities and nature

There is now a simple and easy way to remove pollution from the air, promote biodiversity and naturally control the temperature in your home – and it’s all thanks to a new community-focused resource designed to help urban dwellers go green.

As coronavirus forces lockdowns, parks lift spirits in cities

As the coronavirus outbreak shutters gyms, malls and swimming pools, residents from Los Angeles to Bangkok are heading to parks and open spaces during lockdowns, highlighting their vital role in protecting health and wellbeing, urban experts said.

Big brains or many babies: How birds can thrive in urban environments

A new study in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution suggests that birds have two alternative strategies for coping with the difficulties of humanity's increasingly chaotic cities - either by having large brains or through more frequent breeding.

Utrecht rooftops to be ‘greened’ with plants and mosses in new plan

Every roof in the city district of Utrecht is to be “greened” with plants and mosses or have solar panels installed under plans driven by the success of a similar scheme for the municipality’s bus stops.

How to increase biodiversity across cities

Cities and their surrounding areas are expanding. And this dramatically affects ecosystems. Urban areas are often perceived to have lower biodiversity than the countryside, but some recent studies suggest that urban land can support pollinator populations.

Nature takes back world's empty city streets

As humans retreat into their homes as more and more countries go under coronavirus lockdown, wild animals are slipping cover to explore the empty streets of some of our biggest cities.

Urban birds need to be smart or fast-breeding

To thrive in urban environments, birds need to either have large brains, or breed many times over their life, according to a new study involving UCL.

Museum to launch national programme to protect urban nature as it announces plans to transform five-acre London gardens into the nation’s urban nature ‘epicentre’

Leading a coalition of museums and wildlife organisations, the Natural History Museum’s Urban Nature Project will not only transform its London gardens into a biodiversity hub, but critically it will create an urban nature movement through a UK-wide learning programme for young people, families ...

Coronavirus: The wildlife species enjoying lockdown

As the UK enters it fourth week of lockdown, conservationists say they have seen some hidden benefits of the restrictions in the natural world.

How to green our cities without putting communities at risk of bushfire

The pursuit of greener urban areas in NSW will bring us resilience to climate change and increased liveability but if we’re not careful, urban greening policies could be the kindling for future bushfire events that destroy lives and property.

Social distance, sustainable cities and building public health capacity

The spread of the coronavirus and the need for social distance is seen by some as a fundamental challenge to globalism, population density, and urban life. The virus is both a challenge and a catastrophe, but it does not change the basic appeal and benefit of our way of life.

Urban farms to traffic bans: Cities prep for post-coronavirus future

As the coronavirus pandemic forced lockdowns in many parts of the world, cities from Amsterdam to Singapore are unveiling measures to improve sustainability, food security and living standards that urban experts said would soon become the norm.

'The bliss of a quiet period': lockdown is a unique chance to study the nature of cities

Empty streets and skies let the birds be heard and leave animals free to roam as well as allowing scientists to examine how humans change urban biodiversity.

Green rooftops and permeable pavements can help reduce risks of floods

Now that we are finally taking a breather from water scarcity and rationing, we are confronting increased flood risks brought by the south-west monsoon, as evidenced by the recent floods in Petaling Jaya, Penang and Kedah. Echoing Sahabat Alam Malaysia president Meenakshi Raman’s call to create ...

Coronavirus: we're in a real-time laboratory of a more sustainable urban future

A pause has been forced on urban life. Quiet roads, empty skies, deserted high streets and parks, closed cinemas, cafés and museums—a break in the spending and work frenzy so familiar to us all. The reality of lockdown is making ghost towns of the places we once knew. Everything we know about ou ...

Birds in cities

Birds have two alternative strategies for coping with the difficulties of humanity’s increasingly chaotic cities. They need to either have large brains or breed many times over their life in order to thrive in urban environments, according to a new study involving University College London (UCL).

Nature survives in the tiniest corners': the City of London's wild heart

There was literally a frog orgy in that one. There is no other way to describe it,” says Jules Waite, from the London Wildlife Trust, pointing at a pond in the Barbican wildlife garden, one of the few areas of London’s Square Mile whose inhabitants are not in lockdown.

'Sweet City': the Costa Rica suburb that gave citizenship to bees, plants and trees

“Pollinators were the key,” says Edgar Mora, reflecting on the decision to recognise every bee, bat, hummingbird and butterfly as a citizen of Curridabat during his 12-year spell as mayor.

Wildlife through the window: what readers have spotted during lockdown

We asked Guardian readers living in cities and towns across the world to share their images of the wildlife they can see from their homes. You answered in your droves, from Canada to Cardiff, and here are some of the best.

'Sweet City': the Costa Rica suburb that gave citizenship to bees, plants and trees

“Pollinators were the key,” says Edgar Mora, reflecting on the decision to recognise every bee, bat, hummingbird and butterfly as a citizen of Curridabat during his 12-year spell as mayor.

The City of Montreal, with the support of ICLEI-Cities Biodiversity Center and the SCBD, through the #CitiesWithNature initiative, developed short briefing sheets about inspiring examples for communities to act to protect biodiversity in our cities

Webinars on the long-term approach to mainstreaming biodiversity and the role of subnational governments and local authorities in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework

Reference: SCBD/SSSF/ML/OH/89116 (2020-072)
To: CBD National Focal Points, relevant organizations and partners

United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation 2020

12 September 2020, New York, United States of America

World Tourism Day 2020

27 September 2020, New York, United States of America

World Habitat Day 2020

5 October 2020, Nairobi, Kenya

World Cities Day 2020

31 October 2020, New York, United States of America

McGill College Avenue revitalization set to include more leisure space for students

After a year-long competition, the city of Montreal unveiled the winning design for the transformation of McGill College on Oct. 15. The City of Montreal announced that Et Sillon, which was pitched by Civiliti, Mandaworks, and SNC Lavalin, was chosen for the upcoming pedestrianization and renova ...

Paris halves street parking and asks residents what they want to do with the space

Paris is set to remove half of its 140,000 on-street car parking spaces as it seeks to make the city greener and more people friendly.

Green jobs needed to make cities resilient against future crises

"If we adapt our cities at an early stage and make them resilient against future crises, we stand a much better chance and there are also economic gains," says Johan Colding, Director of Urban Studio at University of Gävle.

South Africa: Veld Circles Are Creating Custodians of Cape Town's Biodiversity

Dr Caitlin von Witt's message is clear: 'If you want to support the most biodiversity, you should support local biodiversity.' Through the FundaFynbos project, she is educating Capetonians about indigenous plants and encouraging them to plant them at home.

Call the cavalry! Horses ride to rescue of an inner city garden

It’s not often that the City of London’s police horses are asked to trample on someone’s garden. But when the request came, it wasn’t made by a spiteful neighbour but a group of community wildlife gardeners who wanted divots in their grass.

Cities can help migrating birds on their way by planting more trees and turning lights off at night

Millions of birds travel between their breeding and wintering grounds during spring and autumn migration, creating one of the greatest spectacles of the natural world. These journeys often span incredible distances. For example, the Blackpoll Warbler, which weighs less than half an ounce, may tr ...

More oxygen, cleaner air for Chennai as civic body plans to set up 1,000 urban forests

The residents of Chennai will now breathe in cleaner air as the municipal corporation is mulling the setting up of 1,000 urban forests. The Greater Chennai Corporation commissioner G Prakash said that the government will set up more forests in vacant places across the city.

World Wildlife day: "Forests and Livelihoods: Sustaining People and Planet" (14:00-17:30 CET)

3 March 2021, Virtual

‘It's radical’: the Ugandan city built on solar, shea butter and people power

The village of Okere Mom-Kok was in ruins by the end of more than a decade of war in northern Uganda.Now, just outside Ojok Okello’s living-room door, final-year pupils at the early childhood centre are noisily breaking for recess and a market is clattering into life, as is the local craft brewe ...

Artist unveils ambitious plans for a forest in central London

London's Somerset House, a well-known historical arts center in the middle of the capital, will soon be home to a forest of 400 trees.

What urban nature really means for insect biodiversity

Parks and green spaces in cities provide health and wellness benefits to human inhabitants, but they’re not necessarily beneficial for other urban dwellers – like insects. Researchers are investigating urban biodiversity with approaches such as ‘bee hotels’ to see how cities can better foster in ...

How Mexico City Is Embracing Biodiversity

Wildlife and greenery aren’t Mexico City’s calling cards. But while the world’s fifth-largest metropolis is home to more than 21 million people, it’s also grounds for nearly 4,000 species of flora and fauna, and some 15 percent of its total area consists of national parks and other protected areas.

Rewilding our cities: beauty, biodiversity and the biophilic cities movement

Our cities are dominated by glass-faced edifices that overheat like greenhouses then guzzle energy to cool down. Instead, we could have buildings that are intimately connected to the living systems that have evolved with us, that celebrate the human-nature connection that is central to our wellb ...

Helsinki invests in the protection of biodiversity

The city’s Biodiversity Action Plan will safeguard plants, species and their habitats. One of Helsinki’s greatest attractions is its beautiful and diverse nature. According to the municipality, over a third of the city’s area consists of forests, meadows, and parks. What is more, it is also well ...

Explore nature and help Cape Town win the City Nature Challenge — here's how

The City of Cape Town will open several of its nature reserves to the public and has arranged free guided walks between April 30 and May 3. Residents have been urged to get out and explore nature to capture as many wild plants and animals as possible and help the city win this year's City Nature ...

Costa Rica’s Environmental Commitment Awarded by Unesco

Costa Rica’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed that the United Nations Organization for Science, Education and Culture (Unesco) has awarded the city of San José the Netexplo Linking Cities 2021 Award, in the category ‘Zero Carbon Objective’.

Singapore leads green architecture and sustainable building design in Asia - here's why

Kermit the Frog once lamented that it wasn't easy being green. Large-scale developers who for years have been trying to reconcile their economic and environmental concerns would agree.

Bee population steady in Dutch cities thanks to pollinator strategy

Bee hotels, bee stops and a honey highway are some of the components of a national pollinator strategy that the Dutch are crediting with keeping their urban bee population steady in recent years, after a period of worrying decline.

After the Renowned Vertical Forest in Milan, the Concept of Urban Forestry by Architect Stefano Boeri Spreads in Northern Europe, Starting From Eindhoven, Utrecht and Antwerp

Worldwide, cities produce about 70% of the CO2 present in the atmosphere, while forests and woods are able to absorb 40% of it. Increasing wooded areas within and around cities would multiply the resilience capacities of urban areas and would drastically reduce the production of CO2, thanks to p ...

EFFEKT to present 'naturbyen' nature village at the venice architecture biennale 2021

Copenhagen-based studio EFFEKT has presented plans for a residential development that forms part of its contribution to the upcoming venice architecture biennale. Titled ‘naturbyen’, a name that translates as ‘nature village’, the project will see a field in denmark transformed into a completely ...

Calgary named 1 of 4 bird-friendly cities by Nature Canada

Calgary has been named one of the country's four bird friendly cities by the group, Nature Canada. The designation came into effect in Calgary on May 7 — along with Toronto, Vancouver and London, Ont. — one day ahead of World Migratory Bird Day.