Climate-Resilient Biodiverse Cities in Latin America

Climate-Resilient Biodiverse Cities in Latin America

May 2020

Climate Resilient Biodiverse Cities in Latin America

Table of Contents Biodiverse Cities in times of COVID-19………………………………………………………… 6 Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................ 8 Foreword ....................................................................................................................................... 19 Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................. 21 Chapter 2: Benefits of Biodiversity to Cities ................................................................................ 24 Chapter 3: Climate Resilience and Green Infrastructure .............................................................. 35 Chapter 4: Pressures on Biodiversity ............................................................................................ 41 Chapter 5: Tools for Measuring Biodiversity in Cities ................................................................. 49 Chapter 5: Biodiversity by Design................................................................................................ 54 Chapter 6: Best Practice Case Studies for Biodiversity ................................................................ 60 Chapter 7: A Biodiversity Tool Kit for Cities .............................................................................. 72 Annexes......................................................................................................................................... 83

List of Figures Figure 1: Framework of the Singapore Index on Cities Biodiversity ........................................... 51

List of Boxes Box 1: Prepare a Local Biodiversity Action Plan ......................................................................... 75 Box 2: Building Consensus About Biodiversity Values ............................................................... 79 Box 3: Crafting the Biodiversity Message.................................................................................... 81

List of Annexes Annex 1: Benefits of Green Roofs ............................................................................................... 84

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Climate Resilient Biodiverse Cities in Latin America

Acknowledgements This report was prepared for the InterAmerican Development Bank (IADB) by Miles Scott-Brown and Amanda Lima. Gretta Elizondo also assisted in the final editing of the document.

Additional support was provided by Edna Rodriguez and Andrea Moreno of Intelligent Social Investment in the development of the biodiversity took kit.

The authors are also grateful for the support of Maria Camila Quintero Garzon and the Housing and Urban Development Division of IADB throughout the duration of the project.

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Climate Resilient Biodiverse Cities in Latin America

Acronyms CBD

Convention on Biological Diversity

CEPAR

Center for Agricultural Production Studies

EDS

Ecosystem Disservices

GI

Green Infrastructure

GMO

Genetically Modified Organism

ICLEI

Local Governments for Sustainability

IPPC

International Panel on Climate Change

LAB

Local Action for Biodiversity

LAC

Latin America and Caribbean

LBAP

Local Biodiversity Action Plan

NGO

Non-government Organization

SDG

Sustainable Development Goals

SI

Sustainability Index

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Climate Resilient Biodiverse Cities in Latin America

Biodiverse Cities in Times of COVID-19 The recent COVID-19 emergency has highlighted our fragility as a species and has revealed the close interdependencies between urban lifestyles and the state of equilibrium of the planetary natural base. Today, despite multiple efforts at the global, national and local levels to conserve biological diversity, more than 75% of our planet's surface has been altered. The loss of species and the alteration of social-ecological systems continues to be incremental, and we have failed to insert our actions-individual, institutional, governmental and corporate-into a system of collective responsibilities that contribute to sustainable and viable environments.

We are part of a vibrant era, in which new global development challenges are converging with extraordinary digital, computational and biological innovations. Cities are centers of production and consumption, centers of intensive demand for natural resources, and spaces of high population concentration, all dynamics that define the metabolism of these socio-ecological systems. They are also planetary interconnection points and cradles of innovation and creativity, and therefore, engines capable of reversing the negative interactions between urban growth and the natural base on which development depends.

This transformative potential of cities and their metabolism has been recognized as a fundamental asset for sustainable development. We are facing an influx of tools and solutions that emerge from the cities themselves, and we must continue to stimulate and maintain an articulated work between citizens, organizations, sectors and institutions, in order to connect all these opportunities with the common goal of fostering the development of biodiverse, sustainable and resilient urban landscapes in the face of global changes.

The present publication is connected to that purpose. Its practical profile seeks to guide the design of city models in Latin America in line with the challenges of biodiversity management.

Circulating these knowledge products will strengthen communication between private and public institutions, research centers, and local and global citizen networks, thus inviting other actors to align themselves with the planning of social and economic development on an urban scale that is in harmony with the natural base on which they depend.

This report and its toolkit come at a crucial time, when urban growth paradigms are being rethought from a holistic health perspective. This past year of confinement due to the effects of the pandemic has underscored the importance of implementing new ways of relating to the environment that recognize the interconnectedness between people, animals, plants and their shared environment, in a commitment to planetary health.

Such conditions of isolation have revived reflections on fundamental elements of ecology and its systemic logic: everything is connected. Under this logic, The Humboldt Institute has undertaken work as a facilitator of a network that favors the transition of cities towards a positive relationship with biodiversity, and thus be recognized as BiodiverCities. This concept has been coined by the Government of Colombia as a strategy for the transition of urban centers towards a territorial

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planning that recognizes biodiversity as an unavoidable support for their development and promotes actions accordingly.

This initiative has a new global ambition framework, BiodiverCities by 2030, which places biodiversity as a determining factor in urban design and city planning processes at a global level, as well as in the formation of citizens aware of their environment, who seek competitive solutions based on the available natural supply, and who modify their consumption patterns in pursuit of better planetary health.

BiodiverCities by 2030 will be led by a strategic alliance between the Humboldt Institute and the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with the Government of Colombia and other key stakeholders. Under this alliance, the Institute has the central commitment to act as a "knowledge broker", connecting and transmitting knowledge on biodiversity in the urban sphere, and supporting the integration and dissemination of products such as the one presented here, so as to generate new synergies and ensure additionality in every effort invested in favor of biodiversity conservation in cities, by cities, for cities, and from cities.

It is necessary to continue promoting the generation of products and initiatives such as the one we have in our hands, that are tactical, that privilege iterations, and that recognize the complexity of urban contexts in order to react nimbly to change. We must align ourselves with the purpose of this publication, and continue to strengthen the skills of decision-makers to design city models that are adaptable and sensitive to local attributes; that stimulate multi-sectoral and transdisciplinary alliances; that promote literacy about the values of nature; that place ecological functioning as an intrinsic part of views on urban development; that recognize particular operating environments; and that interpret the needs and responsibilities for biodiversity conservation in Latin American and global cities.

Cities are living organisms that emanate the pulse of complexity. Understanding them as such allows us to perceive their emergent properties, relationships and interdependencies at all scales.

Such a symbiotic view will allow us to be more effective in identifying links and assigning responsibilities in this regard, leading to vital rewards for biodiversity as an unquestionable source of well-being. Undoubtedly the greatest risk we are currently facing is the expansive tendency to take nature and its contributions for granted. And we all have something to contribute to prevent it.

Cristina Gómez Garcia-Reyes Hernando García Martínez Alexander Von Humboldt Institute for Research on Biological Resources

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Executive Summary Preamble Can life, other than human, flourish in our cities? And can humans find solace, meaningful existence, and well-being in cities devoid of all other forms of life? Increasing biodiversity loss and rapid urbanization are two key aspects of today’s global development pattern. At no other point in world history has biodiversity been lost at such an alarming rate and neither have cities grown as large, and as quickly. Biodiversity and ecosystem services are the critical foundation upon which humankind ultimately depends upon in order to attain a better quality of life. This is true for cities worldwide, in which access to nature is seldom adequate, whilst demand for natural goods and services to satisfy urban lifestyles continues to increase rapidly. Ascertaining the positive and negative influences between cities and biodiversity and understanding the role that urban nature plays in sustainability and well-being, both within and beyond city boundaries, is a complex endeavour, yet a much needed one in our time.

As the most dominant species on the planet, humans are rapidly converting the world’s natural habitats into urban landscapes. Nearly 55% of the human population now lives in cities; this is expected to increase to 68%, some 7 billion people, by 2050. As the world continues to urbanize, sustainable development depends increasingly on the successful management of urban growth, especially in low-income and lower-middle-income countries, where the pace of urbanization is projected to be the fastest. Many countries will face challenges in meeting the needs of their growing urban populations, including services for housing, provision of food supplies, transportation, energy systems, waste management services and other infrastructure, as well as providing employment and basic services such as education and health care. Integrated policies to improve the lives of both urban and rural dwellers are needed, while strengthening the linkages between urban and rural areas and building on their existing economic, social, and environmental ties. How we manage biodiversity in our urban environments will be key to meeting the service and welfare needs of human beings, while leaving viable spaces for other forms of life, important to our very own existence.

Human survival is dependent on biodiversity; that is, the diverse range of organisms inhabiting the planet. One way of representing the benefits of biodiversity for the environment and for humans is through the concept of ecosystem services, describing the benefits that humans derive from nature. The biophysical structure and function of ecosystems are linked to these services, which are then linked to human well-being through their benefits and associated economic value.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment estimates that more than 60% of global ecosystem services are now being degraded or unsustainably managed. This, along with the fact that there is a positively reinforcing feedback loop between biodiversity loss and climate change, is why biodiversity loss is now an even more urgent issue for humans to address. The struggle for a sustainable future on this planet will be won or lost in our cities. Rapid urbanization represents major challenges, but also provides tremendous opportunities to ensure basic human welfare and a viable global environment. These opportunities lie in ecological design and function of urban landscapes because they are also the very places where knowledge, innovation, and the human and financial resources for finding solutions to global environmental problems are likely to be found.

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Climate Resilient Biodiverse Cities in Latin America

Biodiversity Challenges and Opportunities in cities Although cities are centers of resource consumption and land-use change, they also represent a considerable opportunity for forwarding global sustainability, biodiversity conservation, achievement of environmental goals and the betterment of the quality of human life.

Ecosystem services can address various challenges that cities currently face. Clean air, safe drinking water, provision of genetic resources, waste treatment and protection from climate change effects are all highly relevant to human development in cities, and many forms of poverty are caused or exacerbated by a lack of access to these essential ecosystem services. Furthermore, cities consume vast amounts of resources and thus generate large amounts of waste and emissions. These negative externalities of urban growth are borne disproportionately by the poor, who do not have access, or the means, to procure clean drinking water and safe food supplies and to achieve universal access to essential health services. The role of natural areas in providing a catchment for stable and cheap drinking water cannot be overemphasized; almost a third of the world’s’ one hundred largest cities have proximate natural areas that provide this essential service. Green spaces in or near cities also help to regulate temperatures, protect against natural hazards, meet energy needs, support agriculture, prevent soil erosion and deliver cultural services including aesthetics and recreation, all leading to healthier and richer human lifestyles.

Yet despite the many benefits and opportunities that urban green spaces provide, there are also equally many challenges that biodiversity faces in cities. These include, for example, the negative effects of ecosystem disservices, such as aesthetics, safety, security, health, economic and mobility issues, conversion of natural habitats, awareness and education, biosafety, growth, population, poverty and urban governance. It is extremely important for policy makers, especially at the city level, to understand how these challenges can affect everyday practices of urban people, so mitigating measures can be put in place when planning and implementing urban development plans.

The Role of Urban Ecosystem Services in Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience The relationship between cities and climate change is well documented internationally by various studies, which highlight the negative effects of climate change on the well-being of urban populations and natural ecosystems.

In practice however, it is not very well understood how urban ecosystems provide many essential ecosystem services for the city, and that planning for, conserving, and managing urban and periurban biodiversity can in return provide many positive benefits for city dwellers. Firstly, it is important to highlight that urban biodiversity is crucial not only for the proper functioning of ecological processes, but also for the capacity of the urban area to absorb changing environmental conditions brought on by climate change.

Green Infrastructure, or GIs, according to the European Union (E.U.) definition, "... are networks of natural and semi-natural areas planned at strategic level with other environmental elements, designed and managed in such a way as to provide a wide spectrum of ecosystem services”. This 8|Page

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includes green (or blue, in the case of aquatic ecosystems) and other physical elements in areas on land (including coastal areas) and in marine areas.

In contrast, gray infrastructure refers to human engineered infrastructure such as water treatment facilities, sewer systems, stormwater systems, or storage basins. The term can also be applied to other infrastructure types such as roads and highways, ports, airports, commercial and retail infrastructure, utilities and social infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals. The term “gray” refers to the fact that such structures are often made of concrete and steel.

Urban GIs are one important way that can help cities adapt to climate change, and how the strategy of expanding green infrastructure in urban planning can play an important role in enhancing the sustainability and resilience of cities and communities. Many studies have shown the benefits of GIs to climate change mitigation and adaptation in urban areas and their role as an important urban planning tool to help satisfy environmental, social, and economic needs of urban areas. Such natural interventions are increasingly being recognized as a desirable 'win-win' approach to combating climate change, as they also help to deliver multiple other social, economic, and environmental benefits.

Climate change adaptation and resilience requires the use of innovative solutions and new tools for urban management and planning. New urban structures, such as low energy consumption buildings and infrastructure, green areas and green roofs, and the adoption of advanced technologies can mitigate global emissions and local pollution, which in turn promote adaptation to climate change. In the new vision of a city, sustainable and resilient, these green areas assume an even greater importance and become multifunctional resources for the city and its inhabitants.

Rather than looking at these as two separate systems, mainstreaming of both green and gray infrastructure may be the key to assuring long term climate resilience in cities. The World Bank states that over time, and done properly, combining green and gray infrastructure offers the potential to help provide water, food, and energy to growing populations, alleviate poverty, and mitigate climate change.

Despite the ecological, cultural and economic importance of these services, ecosystems and the biodiversity that underpins them are still being degraded and lost at an unprecedented scale. One major reason for this is that the contribution of ecosystems to human welfare is still underestimated and not fully recognized in most planning and decision-making processes, in other words, the benefits of their services are not, or only partly, captured in conventional market economics. The challenge is measuring and conveying the economic value of biodiversity to instill its important role in the minds of all municipalities.

The 100 Resilient Cities initiative notes this disconnect between the significant value of nature to cities and the lack of importance placed on it by municipal planners. They state that even if governments and businesses alike are starting to recognize nature as a critical component of thriving, resilient cities, these considerations are all too often absent from the decisions that planners and policymakers are taking that will ultimately shape the urban landscapes of our cities in the years to come. The fact that 60% of the area projected to be urban by 2050 has yet to be

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built, presents both a challenge and an opportunity to change direction as to how we plan to incorporate nature.

The opportunity to build and rebuild resilient and healthy communities by taking advantage of natural infrastructure’s many benefits is available to every city. While there will be many challenges, these solutions will provide some of the most productive and cost-effective options to meet cities’ challenges. At the same time, they will provide valuable co-benefits that will make cities better places to live for residents struggling with a broad array of shocks and stresses.

Biodiversity by Design If we think of the city as a part of nature – how can our urban environment be best developed to cohabit with the natural world? How can we design our built form to support healthy and diverse ecosystems – to give biodiversity a proper foothold, however small, to grow and spread along roadways, on rooftops; in tiny rain gardens, backyards, wildflower meadows; to provide connecting green corridors between pockets of habitat; to provide crossings over or under roads and rail corridors; to build artificial habitats to provide new shelter for animals; or to design buildings and structures to reduce bird collisions by making glass visible. Strategic habitat interventions and corridors will better integrate the city’s natural heritage system and open space network and contribute to a more biodiverse and resilient urban ecosystem.

When designing cities for biodiversity, there are key urban and ecological design aspects that need to be carefully considered in order to achieve the greatest effectiveness and efficiency of urban planning processes. The include aspects such as current city age, structure and size, the size and location of important biodiversity patches, the presence or absence of connecting corridors that maximize genetic flow or create genetic bottlenecks, the size and scale of spatial variation, the number and status of connections to biodiversity richer peri-urban areas and how to minimize the fragmentation of the internal urban matrix.

Cities are not the same and differ from one another. They are all built differently, vary in size, demographics, and culture, and have unique regional climates and landscapes. For the effective management of urban biodiversity, there simply cannot be a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution.

Fortunately, there are many solutions to biodiversity conservation, that every local government can use and adapt dependent upon what their municipal goals, objectives and targets may be.

The Singapore Index The Singapore Index, now the City Biodiversity Index, is a self-assessment tool for cities to evaluate and monitor the progress of their biodiversity conservation efforts against their own individual city baselines. It is comprised of the following elements: a) the “Profile of the City”, which provides background information on the city; and b) 23 indicators that measure native biodiversity, ecosystem services provided by biodiversity, and governance and management of biodiversity.

The scoring of the City Biodiversity Index is quantitative in nature. Each indicator is assigned a scoring range between zero and four points, with a total possible maximum score of 92 points. The 10 | P a g e

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year in which a city first embarks on this scoring will be taken as the baseline year, and this will be measured against future applications of the Index to chart its progress in conserving biodiversity.

Cities that have applied the Singapore Index have found that: a) the process facilitated capacitybuilding in biodiversity conservation and management, b) the indicators also function as biodiversity conservation guidelines, and c) the quantitative scoring could assist in setting priorities for conservation actions and budget allocation.

The State of Biodiversity in Latin American Cities Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries contain over 50% of the world’s biodiversity.

This includes some of the most species-rich biomes on Earth, such as lowland rain forests, coral reefs, mangroves and wetlands, making the region one of the most endowed in terms of natural capital wealth in terms of trees, water, minerals and fisheries. Around a quarter of the world’s tropical forests are found in Latin America and the Caribbean, providing a critical element of the global climate regulation system. There is a need of urgency in understanding the importance of biodiversity in Latin America, how to integrate biodiversity and environmental issues in land use planning policies and development strategies and how to both develop and foster an organized governance structure that embraces conservation of the region’s ecosystems.

Cities in LAC have an extremely complex relationship with biodiversity. The region is simultaneously the world’s most urbanized, has some of the world’s largest social and economic inequities, and yet hosts some of the world’s most biodiversity-rich ecosystems, including several biodiversity hotspots. As cities in Latin America are expected to continue to expand and grow both in size and human population, with a continual degradation and loss of biodiversity hotspots, there is an urgent need to conserve these important biodiversity remnants and integrate these important landscapes into the urban fabric.

Despite the importance and recognition of the value of biodiversity in nature, there is still a lack of understanding of the importance of biodiversity in the urban environment. Although there are good examples across the region where biodiversity has been incorporated, for many cities there is limited or non-existent integration of biodiversity and environmental issues into land-use planning policies and development strategies, which are further hampered by low levels of governance and limited information on the affected ecosystems. A further complication to governance is the lack of a long-term planning framework and continuance of initiatives in consecutive administrations beyond the short four or five year mandates of governments.

Biodiversity Conservation Case Studies Provide Direction for Latin American Municipalities Lessons learned and their applicability to Latin American cities can be gained through examining best biodiversity practices in different cities around the world. The City of Edmonton, Canada is an international leader in biodiversity policy and planning. The first city in North America to formally sign on to the international Local Action for Biodiversity initiative in 2007, Edmonton

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has adopted a policy of actively conserving nature at the highest order of city planning, and biodiversity has been implemented in thirty of the city’s neighborhoods.

Edmonton has made biodiversity protection a priority by integrating biodiversity considerations into urban planning, and community engagement practices. These two areas help the City move towards mainstreaming the understanding of urban biodiversity and the benefits of ecological preservation. Through many programs and activities, the City has successfully incorporated biodiversity into various departments and fostered strong community and stakeholder involvement on conservation. As a result, Edmonton is the home of the largest municipally owned park in Canada and currently has 3800 ha of natural areas within its urban boundaries. As these conservation lands have increased in area, so have the need for effective management responsibilities. The City has actively engaged citizens in biodiversity planning, has created a number of strategic partnerships to overcome resource limitations and fostered cross-department initiatives to promote biodiversity conservation and management across all levels of government.

Environmental preservation is one of the strategic pillars of the planning process that the city of Curitiba, Brazil, has been conducting for over 40 years. Meeting the needs of a fast growing city, without losing sight of its urban potential, was instrumental towards a proposal to establish a network of protected areas, or Conservation Units, allowing for the preservation and conservation of the city’s core green areas, as one of its main urban planning processes. Today Curitiba, known as the ecological capital of Brazil, has an extensive network of 28 parks and wooded areas. In 1970, there was less than 1 square meter of green space per person; today there are 52 square meters for each person. Residents planted 1.5 million trees along city streets, providing shade and needed green space. Builders received tax breaks if their projects included areas of green space.

Flood waters diverted into new lakes in parks created important areas of aquatic habitat, solved the problem of dangerous flooding, while protecting valley floors and riverbanks, acting as a barrier to illegal occupation, and providing aesthetic and recreational value to the thousands of people who use city parks. In Curitiba, industry is organized around the idea of “industrial ecology” so that the planning of industrial activities complements each other, such as the sharing of waste heat and facilitating the transport and flow of materials, so that the waste of one industry becomes the raw material for another. Curitiba has proven that it is possible to integrate biodiversity in the core values of the Municipality with a people-centric planning on a budget mentality.

Since 2015, the city of Medellín, Colombia, adopted a novel approach to manage and conserve biodiversity, leading to the first local action plan on urban biodiversity in the country, called “Medellín, a city of life.” By linking biodiversity and human wellbeing through the provision of ecosystem services, the city has developed a conceptual framework in which biodiversity is much more than the management of strategic ecosystems; it is a multi-scale and cross-sectoral strategy to enhance the quality of life for Medellin’s inhabitants. The resulting action plan on urban biodiversity in Medellin has four strategic lines: biodiversity conservation, comprehensive valuation of ecosystem services, knowledge management, and education and public awareness.

Currently, a think tank on biodiversity, the “Mesa de Biodiversidad” (Round Table of Biodiversity) leads the implementation of an action plan for integrated management of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Medellín’s success should inspire other cities to explore new methods and 12 | P a g e

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concepts that link biodiversity to human wellbeing, resilience, and economic development, with a great sense of innovation, creativity, and experimentation.

The air in Mexico City is one of the most polluted on the planet. In response, the city has enacted stringent pollution control measures to improve its reputation and quality of life. Part of the solution was to create azoteas verdes, a newtwork of city-wide green rooftop gardens. In 2007, a Green Plan was published, identifying targets and necessary actions to guarantee the city’s sustainability. The Green Plan has seven strategies regarding habitability and public space, and green infrastructure. The plan allowed Mexico City to set a very clear goals for green walls and green roofs as a complement to ameliorate air quality. Since 2014, over 21,000 m2 of green roofs have been installed, mainly on government and public buildings, such as schools and hospitals.

The evolution of green urban infrastructure in Mexico City and their implementation is unique, in a city that faces many challenges for sustainability in the medium and long term. It is now Latin America’s leader in the installation of green roofs and walls.

Rosario, Argentina is one of the few large South American cities that have incorporated agriculture fully into their land use planning and urban development strategies. Under its Metropolitan Strategic Plan 2008-2018, Rosario is building a “green circuit”, passing through and around the city, consisting of family and community gardens, large-scale, commercial vegetable gardens and orchards, multifunctional garden parks, and “productive barrios”, where agriculture is integrated into programmes for the construction of public housing and the upgrading of slums.

Rosario has shown that, when there is political will and a clear policy of social inclusion, it is possible to build, in a very short time, a successful programme for urban agriculture. In just twelve years, the programme has transformed and made productive use of the city’s resources by rehabilitating wastelands, recovering and revitalizing public spaces, and creating an alternative, sustainable supply of nutritious, chemical-free food.

Valdivia, Chile, is an inspiring example of how an urban wetland became a political object of civic intervention in which evolving management strategies create both new possibilities for biodiversity conservation and emerging organizational challenges. Currently, the area of Valdivia is over 8000 ha, of which almost 40% of land cover is in wetlands. Despite the spread of urban development, the wetlands of Valdivia still harbour a significant amount of plant and animal biodiversity and residents are placing more and more value to protecting this biodiversity and access to wetlands, urban nature and green space. Wetlands in the southern and poorer area of the city are now public parks in high demand and with significant public investment because they represent the only accessible urban green space. Although wetland reclamation for housing development is still a very common practice, it is beginning to cause large debate among public institutions, academia and developers, who are generally confronted by grassroots organizations and citizens that defend these environments and spaces for recreation, reconnection with nature and social cohesion.

Another city worth mentioning for its biodiversity initiative and not located in Latin America is Cape Town, South Africa. Cape Town managed to avoid their Day Zero water crisis (the day when city's water demand exceeded water supply) by implementing emergency measures alongside with long term water supply strategies, such as the Water Fund. They estimated the Net Present Value of their natural resources and ecosystem services and allocated a portion of it into 13 | P a g e

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the Water Fund. One of the critical issues identified as key to the continued provision of the ecosystem service of safe drinking water, was the presence of invasive alien species (pine trees) in the reservoir catchment. The approach towards fostering a healthy biodiverse ecosystem in Cape Town was partly solved by eradicating these invasive alien species in the watershed. A connection was made between the importance of maintaining natural biodiversity to the provision of safe municipal drinking water for urban residents.

A Ten-step Tool Kit to Promote Biodiversity The purpose of this document is to assist Latin American mayors and municipal governments to promote biodiversity in their cities. It presents a series of practical and realistic actions to valuate the importance of biodiversity to cities, to integrate biodiversity concepts into municipal and urban planning and to mainstream the economics benefits of biodiversity into municipal financing and program development.

To do this, a ten-step biodiversity toolkit has been developed to prioritize biodiversity in the municipal agenda and to foster the development of sustainable and climate-change resilient urban landscapes. It offers municipal decision-makers a road map as to how to design strategies that generate tangible benefits from promoting biodiversity conservation in Latin American cities. A rigorous and methodical approach is used for each of the proposed ten steps that helps to facilitate dialogue, understanding, and justification for biodiversity conservation and to help scope and finance various projects and initiatives to protect and enhance urban biodiversity.

Step 1: Profile the City’s Biodiversity

The first step is focused on mapping the city’s native biodiversity assets, to provide an initial baseline understanding of what’s at stake and why is it important to protect local biodiversity and to embed it into the city’s landscape. The profile is based on the City, or Singapore, index, a selfassessment tool for cities to evaluate and monitor the progress of their biodiversity conservation efforts against their own baselines.

Two products are developed: the first is an Ecosystems Map: Urban and Peri-Urban Areas and a the second a Biodiversity Connectivity Map: showing connectors at regional, national and international level. This leads to the second step, which is to map the status of ecosystem services in the city.

Step 2: Map the status of ecosystem services

The second step identifies what services are provided by natural ecosystems and what is their current status at the city level and its surroundings. It also identifies how these services may be impacted due to social, environmental, cultural, political, and/or economic pressures.

Step 3: Identify critical issues

Each city will have a unique set of critical issues for protecting biodiversity and ecosystem services that need to be addressed appropriately. The issues need to be identified, including any gaps that 14 | P a g e

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impede their resolution. When identifying these critical issues, all stakeholders (Municipal Governments, Opinion Leaders and Urban Dwellers) should be consulted appropriately to develop a unified list of key issues and achieve consensus as to how they should be addressed.

Step 4: Define objectives, goals and projects

Once the critical issues are prioritized, the next step is to formulate the required programs and projects that ensure that the respective objective and goals can be fulfilled. This step is expected to result into a portfolio of programs and projects that are formulated for short, medium- and longterm implementation. It is recommended that SMART objectives be identified: those that are specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and time-bound.

Step 5: Define actions and schedule for a biodiversity action plan

It is important to define key actions for the preparation of a biodiversity action plan; these can be broken down into four five steps: § § § § §

Break down each action into a set of well-defined deliverables Give each deliverable a timeframe Establish agreements with decision makers and community as to their implementation Identify how the actions will occur – what is their sequence?

Schedule with agreed to timeframes

Step 6: Assign roles and responsibilities

Once the deliverables and the timeframes have been defined, the next step is to bring everyone on board and define the required specific roles and responsibilities for implementation. Social connectedness has a special role to play in the collective management of biodiversity and ecosystem services. This connectivity is needed to help build trust among community members, to develop new norms and social practices and to make local environmental issues more prevalent and important for everyone.

Roles and responsibilities can be defined as follows: § § §

Municipal governments are expected to gather consensus, ensure compliance and align biodiversity conservation initiatives with municipal development plans and all stakeholders’ expectations.

From here a biodiversity action plan should be developed that prioritizes a set of actions, allocates budget and how implementation should be achieved.

Community leaders can use the action plan to foster biodiversity literacy throughout the city and tie actions into each neighborhood or district.

When people are well connected and engaged in groups or networks and when their input is sought and incorporated into planning and decision-making processes, they are more likely to become or remain environmental stewards and supportive of biodiversity conservation efforts.

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Step 7: Create budget and financing plan

For many municipalities, the need to fund biodiversity initiatives is the most frequent constraint.

However, it can also be a driver: there is a wide range of revenue sources available to those local governments that are willing to think creatively about partnerships and entrepreneurship (both essential where resources are limited) and to establish funds for targeted programs. Some of these opportunities are discussed below: §

§

Development charges: These are the fees collected by municipalities to offset capital costs incurred to support growth-related infrastructure projects. The fees can be used as an incentive to implement city policies that protect or manage biodiversity. Compensation: Involves a payment made by a development proponent to a conservation body to pay for the replication of ecosystem services and for biodiversity conservation. These can fund land acquisitions, natural heritage feature restoration and long-term monitoring and maintenance.

Habitat banking: Habitat banking is a market-based mechanism that rewards those who restore or improve habitat. In exchange for constructing, restoring or protecting a habitat site, a landowner can sell credits to developers who need to meet requirements for mitigating and compensating for the environmental impacts of development projects. Well run banks save time, money, and improve efficiently.

When funding is scarce, the following alternative solutions can help offset monetary limitations and increase capacity to undertake a diverse range of programs, including biodiversity management: § § § §

Private and public partnerships, which create opportunities for local government and business partners to build, design, manage, operate and maintain a service.

Regional collaborations for service delivery or protection efforts.

Clear and detailed strategies for addressing biodiversity issues, which include time frames, measurable benchmarks, regular reviews and public feedback; and Pilot social financing projects, such as community bonds and crowd-sourcing.

Step 8: Implement and Monitor

For implementation to be successful, it is necessary to build consensus about biodiversity values across multiple institutions and stakeholders, in other words, seek the cooperation and validity among all participants with an interest in biodiversity conservation.

In order to gain this cooperation with stakeholders and to place biodiversity on the agenda, a wide range of communication, education and awareness interventions are needed. This involves networking, and establishing working relationships, defining common goals, influencing decision making processes, negotiating outcomes, strengthening capacities, updating knowledge and ensuring effective implementation. Communication should be a transversal axis across all steps.

Without community engagement, any plan has a great potential for failure. Policy planning and compliance should be constantly assessed.

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Step 9: Communicate results and engage the community

It is very important to highlight that without drawing a baseline of where the city started (Step 1 Profile of the City), it is not possible to demonstrate the biodiversity improvement and achievements of the municipality. Impact measurement and indicators are essential data-gathering steps for building the success story.

The focus should be on positive stories that engage the community and inspire new ideas at round tables. Connecting with influential opinion leaders and media is a key success factor. Storytelling is a key component for the success and future budget approvals of Biodiversity Action Plans. These plans should be well thought out and implemented in the long-term, and storytelling becomes a key ingredient in ensuring that the importance of biodiversity is never understated, regardless of the change in municipal government mandates.

Step 10: Measure positive impacts in the long run

Biodiversity is an integral part of ecological, economic, and social resilience and sustainability in a city. The variety of living organisms in a community provide various services such as clean air, safe drinking water, provision of genetic resources, waste treatment and protection from climate change effects, to name a few. Identification, management, and promotion of biodiversity assets will enhance municipal operations, community livability, and economic development. Missed opportunities will decrease community resilience and increase societal risk by increasing vulnerabilities to human health, the environment, and the economy.

Measurement of the success of biodiversity initiatives, and the indicators for doing so, must be carefully done to show lasting and positive impacts over the long term. This is the only way that biodiversity values will be truly recognized.

Suggestions for focussing long term policy efforts are as follows: § § § §

Stimulating and funding implementation of Green Infrastructure, Creating “Green Jobs”.

Building resilient cities in the face of climate change.

Protecting and enhancing biodiversity and demonstrating its many values to urban residents.

Most municipal and national governments in Latin America often fail to implement long term action plans, because of their short “4-year” mandates. Biodiversity action plans should be approached as fundamental investments for the future and survival of cities and timelines should transcend the limitations of institutional change.

Lessons Learned for Biodiversity Planning in LAC Cities

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This toolkit is a first step aimed at initiating biodiversity planning and management for Latin American cities and municipalities. Biodiversity conservation is unique to each city and its communities and requires planning and management tools specific to each community and reflective of the multiple voices and perspectives of that community. The planning process must be scaled to fit the issues of concern to those in the community. Ideally, integrating current biodiversity projects, plans, programs, and policies into other departments is part of a comprehensive approach that focuses the Biodiversity action plan to the unique characteristics of each municipality.

Four key learning recommendations are provided: § §

§

§

Risk management should be integrated in each step of the toolkit as a best practice.

Evaluating risks incorporates a prevention culture in the management of projects and in the mitigation strategies that increase biodiversity conservation in cities.

A bold communication strategy should be a transversal axis and should be constantly implemented. Communications include data gathering, data analytics, managing expectations and obtaining stakeholder engagement and buy-in from technical, social, or financial roles.

Measuring impacts and success does not only contribute to biodiversity but also to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda. Together with biodiversity, the SDG agenda should be promoted and aligned to public policies and private efforts. Biodiversity focused projects in cities can be one of the elements that has the greatest impact in achieving a sustainable world by 2030.

Projects are only executed if the time and cost estimates are viable, agreed upon and with a formal financing plan. Estimating budgets also involves evaluating and monetizing the benefit that will be obtained from achieving social and environmental goals.

There is a clear need of urgency and a call for municipal action across LAC to understand the importance and value of biodiversity to cities. Governments need to fully integrate biodiversity and environmental issues into land use planning policies and municipal development strategies and to do so within the context of an organized governance structure and long-term planning framework. With over 50% of the world’s remaining biodiversity in nature outside of cities, and that already under serious threat, now more than ever is the time to act and incorporate biodiversity and its benefits into municipal policies, plans and projects throughout the Latin American and Caribbean region.

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Foreword Can life, other than human, flourish in our cities? And can humans find solace, meaningful existence, and well-being in cities devoid of all other life? Increasing biodiversity loss and rapid urbanization are two key ingredients of today’s global development pattern. At no other point in world history has biodiversity been lost at such an alarming rate, and neither have cities grown as large, and as quickly. Biodiversity and ecosystem services are the critical foundation upon which humankind ultimately depends in order to attain a better quality of life. This is true for cities worldwide, in which access to nature is seldom adequate, whilst the demand for natural goods and services to satisfy urban lifestyles continues to increase rapidly. Ascertaining the positive and negative influences between cities and biodiversity and understanding the role that urban nature plays in human sustainability and well-being, both within and beyond city boundaries, is a complex endeavour, yet a much needed one in our time.

As the most dominant species on the planet, humans are rapidly converting the world’s natural habitats into urban landscapes. Nearly 55% of the human population now lives in cities; this is expected to increase to 68%, some 7 billion people, by 2050.i As the world continues to urbanize, sustainable development depends increasingly on the successful management of urban growth, especially in low-income and lower-middle-income countries where the pace of urbanization is projected to be the fastest. Many countries will face challenges in meeting the needs of their growing urban populations, including services for housing, provision of food supplies, transportation, energy systems, waste management services and other infrastructure, as well as the provision of employment and basic services such as education and health care. Integrated policies to improve the lives of both urban and rural dwellers are needed, while strengthening the linkages between urban and rural areas and building on their existing economic, social and environmental ties.ii How we manage biodiversity in urban environments will be key to meeting the service and welfare needs of human beings while leaving viable spaces for other forms of life.

Human survival is dependent on biodiversity; that is, the diverse range of organisms inhabiting the planet. iii This is because we now significantly affect ecosystem processes and functions, and therefore the delivery of associated ecosystem services.iv One way of representing the benefits of biodiversity for the environment and for humans is the concept of ecosystem servicesv, describing the benefits that humans derive from nature. The biophysical structure and function of ecosystems are linked to these services, which are then linked to human well-being through benefits and economic value.vi The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment estimates that more than 60% of global ecosystem services are now degraded or unsustainably managed. This, along with the fact that there is a positively reinforcing feedback loop between biodiversity loss and climate change, is why biodiversity loss is an urgent issue for humans to address.

This rapid urbanization represents major challenges, but also provides tremendous opportunities to ensure basic human welfare and a viable global environment. These opportunities lie in the urban landscapes because these are also the very places where knowledge, innovation, and the human and financial resources for finding solutions to global environmental problems are likely to be found.

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The Latin America and the Caribbean region (LAC) contains over 50% of the world’s biodiversity.

It includes some of the most species-rich biomes on Earth, such as lowlands rainforests, coral reefs, mangroves, and wetlands, making the region one of the most endowed in terms of natural capital wealth: trees, water, minerals and fisheries. Around a quarter of the world’s tropical forests are found in Latin America and the Caribbean, providing a critical element of the global climate regulation system. There is a need of urgency in understanding the importance of biodiversity, integration of environmental issues in land use planning policies and development strategies, as well as an organized governance towards the region’s ecosystems.

Latin American cities have an extremely complex relationship with biodiversity. The region is one of the world’s most urbanized environments, has some of the world’s largest social and economic inequities, and yet hosts some of the world’s most biodiversity-rich ecosystems, including several biodiversity hotspots. As cities in Latin America are expected to continue to expand and grow both in size and human population, with a continual degradation and loss of biodiversity hotspots, there is an urgent need to conserve these important biodiversity remnants and integrate these important landscapes into design of the urban fabric.

Municipal governments in Latin America have not yet fully grasped that urban ecosystems provide many essential ecosystem services for the city, and that planning for, conserving, and managing urban and peri urban biodiversity and natural spaces can provide many positive benefits for city dwellers.

To assist Latin American mayors and municipal governments to promote biodiversity in their cities, this document presents a series of practical and realistic actions to valuate the importance of biodiversity to cities, to integrate biodiversity concepts into municipal and urban planning and to mainstream the economics benefits of biodiversity into municipal financing and program development.

The structure of the document is organized as follows: § § § § § § § § §

Executive Summary Chapter 1: An introduction to biodiversity in cities Chapter 2: A description of the benefits of biodiversity Chapter 3: Climate resilience and green infrastructure Chapter 4: Pressures on biodiversity Chapter 5: Tools for measuring biodiversity in cities Chapter 6: Biodiversity by design Chapter 7: Best practice case studies of biodiverse cities Chapter 8: A biodiversity tool kit for Latin American cities

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Chapter 1: Introduction

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Introduction As the most dominant species on the planet, humans are rapidly converting the world’s natural habitats into urban landscapes. Nearly 55% of the human population now lives in cities; this is expected to increase to 68%, some 7 billion people, by 2050.vii As the world continues to urbanize, sustainable development depends increasingly on the successful management of urban growth, especially in low-income and lower-middle-income countries where the pace of urbanization is projected to be the fastest. Many countries will face challenges in meeting the needs of their growing urban populations, including services for housing, provision of food supplies, transportation, energy systems, waste management services and other infrastructure, as well as providing for employment and basic services such as education and health care. Integrated policies to improve the lives of both urban and rural dwellers are needed, while strengthening the linkages between urban and rural areas, building on their existing economic, social and environmental ties.viii How we manage biodiversity in urban environments will be key to meeting the service and welfare needs of human beings while leaving viable spaces for other forms of life.

Human survival is dependent on biodiversity; that is, the diverse range of organisms inhabiting the planet. ix This is because we now significantly affect ecosystem processes and functions, and therefore the delivery of associated ecosystem services.x One way of representing the benefits of biodiversity for the environment and for humans is the concept of ecosystem servicesxi, describing the benefits that humans derive from nature. The biophysical structure and function of ecosystems are linked to these services, which are then linked to human well-being through benefits and economic value.xii The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment estimates that more than 60% of global ecosystem services are now degraded or unsustainably managed. This, along with the fact that there is a positively reinforcing feedback loop between biodiversity loss and climate change, is why biodiversity loss is an urgent issue for humans to address and the struggle for a sustainable future on this planet will be won or lost in our cities, where 2/3 of the human population are projected to live by 2050.xiii This rapid urbanization represents major challenges, but also provides tremendous opportunities to ensure basic human welfare and a viable global environment. These opportunities lie in the urban landscapes because these are also the very places where knowledge, innovations, and the human and financial resources for finding solutions to global environmental problems are likely to be found.

Main Challenges and Opportunities for Biodiversity in Cities Although cities are centers of resource consumption and land-use change, they represent a considerable opportunity for forwarding global sustainability, environmental goals and the betterment of quality of human life.

Ecosystem services can address various challenges that cities currently face. Clean air, safe drinking water, provision of genetic resources, waste treatment and protection from climate change effects are all highly relevant to human development in cities, and many forms of poverty are caused or exacerbated by a lack of access to these essential ecosystem services. Furthermore, cities consume tremendous amounts of resources and thus generate large amounts of waste and 22 | P a g e

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emissions. These negative externalities of urban growth are borne disproportionately by the poor, who do not have access (or the means) to procure clean drinking water, safe food supplies and universal access to health services. The role of natural areas in providing a catchment for stable and cheap drinking water cannot be overemphasized; almost a third of the 100 largest cities have proximate natural areas that provide this service. Green spaces in or near cities also helps to regulate temperatures, protect against natural hazards, meet energy needs, support agriculture, prevent soil erosion and deliver cultural services including aesthetics and recreation, all leading to healthier lifestyles.

Urban ecosystem services play an increasingly important role towards climate change adaptation and resilience. The relationship between cities and climate change is now documented internationally by various studies, which highlight the negative effects of climate change on the well-being of the urban population and natural ecosystems.

Despite the many benefits and opportunities that urban green spaces bring to city dwellers, there are equally many challenges facing the valuation of biodiversity and its conservation in cities.

These include, for example, ecosystem disservices, such as aesthetics, safety, security, health, economic and mobility issues, conversion of natural habitats, awareness and education, biosafety, growth, population, poverty, and urban governance. It is extremely important for policy makers, especially at the city level, to understand how these challenges can affect everyday practices of city residents, so mitigation measures can be put in place when planning and implementing urban development plans.

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Chapter 2: Benefits of Biodiversity to Cities

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Benefits of Biodiversity to Cities This chapter discusses the benefits of biodiversity to cities through the provision of important ecosystem services of value to urban populations.

The Benefits of Biodiversity are Many-fold Ecosystem services are fundamental to basic human survival and human wellbeing. xiv It is estimated that the human economy would not be able to replace all of the ecosystem services we utilise if these services were to be paid for in monetary terms based on their estimated value; in 2014 this was estimated at $US125 trillion or about 166% higher than the entire global gross national product ($US75.2 trillion).xv Many of these ecosystem services cannot be replaced with current technology, and the noneconomic cost of loss of ecosystems is beyond measure or imagination. This is alarming given that between 1997 and 2011, the loss of ecosystem services due to human induced land use changes was estimated to be between $US 4.3 and $US 20.2 trillion per year. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment estimates that more than 60% of ecosystem services have now been degraded by human activities.xvi We are clearly in a biodiversity extinction crisis; scientists estimate we're now losing species at up to 1,000 times the background rate, with literally dozens going extinct every day; as many as 30 to 50 percent of all species possibly heading toward extinction by 2050.xvii Ecosystem services are the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to human well-being.

Cities depend on ecosystems both within and beyond the urban environment for a wide variety of goods and services that are essential for economic, social, and environmental sustainability.

Ecosystems have the potential in cities to regulate climate, to protect against natural hazards, tp meet energy needs, to support agriculture, prevent soil erosion, purify wastewater and offer opportunities for recreation and cultural inspiration.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, agreed by the 193 States Members of the United Nations, sets out an ambitious framework of universal and indivisible goals and targets to address a range of global societal challenges. Biodiversity and ecosystems feature prominently across many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and associated targets. They contribute directly to human well-being and development priorities. Biodiversity is at the centre of many economic activities, particularly those related to crop and livestock agriculture, forestry, and fisheries. Globally, nearly half of the human population is directly dependent on natural resources for its livelihood, and many of the most vulnerable people depend directly on biodiversity to fulfil their daily subsistence needs.xviii The Economics of Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity group ecosystem services into four major categories: provisioning, regulating, cultural and amenity and supporting services.xix Provisioning services include all the material products obtained from ecosystems, including genetic resources, food and fiber, and fresh water.

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Regulating services include all benefits obtained from the regulation by ecosystem processes, including the regulation of climate, water, and some human diseases.

Cultural services are the non-material benefits people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experience as well as their role in supporting knowledge systems, social relations, and aesthetic values.

Finally, supporting or habitat services are those that are necessary for the production and maintenance of all other ecosystem services.

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Ecosystems and biodiversity underpin the day-to-day functioning of cities and human systems by delivering the basic services and conditions that enable, support and protect human production, consumption and habitation. Healthy ecosystems can provide protection and resilience from extreme weather events and disasters. Urban planning that integrates biodiversity conservation also contributes to more sustainable and liveable human settlements. For example, strategic placement of trees in urban areas can cool the air between 2°C and 8°C. Furthermore, trees properly placed around buildings can reduce air conditioning needs by 30% and save energy used for heating by 20% to 50%.xx The value of each of the four ecosystem services to urban environments follows.

Provisioning Services Food supply

The provision of food supplies includes food sourced from terrestrial, marine and freshwater aquatic ecosystems for humans directly, as well as forage or feed for livestock. It includes hunting, gathering, subsistence farming and larger scale agricultural, horticultural and commercial fishing activities. While the provision of food has increased greatly since the late 1960s due to the ‘green revolution’, and food production now occupies more than a third of the planet’s land area, this has come at the expense of a decrease in regulation and supporting services.xxi Food production rose by 45% between 1992 and 2009. This exceeded the increase in population for the same period, which was 26%.xxii The current form of global food production is based on transported products of large-scale agribusiness, more so than the traditional small-scale local farms that existed before the ‘green revolution’ and is largely dependent on the use of fossil fuels and fertilizer inputs. Over time, intensive agriculture diminishes the ability of land to produce food without these critical inputsxxiii, while impacting negatively on other ecosystem services.

Calculated energy content of food, based on the fossil fuels used to produce it, exceeds by more than seven times on average the calorific energy content of the produced food source.xxiv This means that for every calorie consumed as food, more than seven times as much energy was used to produce it and get it to point of sale. Food production and the dietary choices of individuals contribute significantly to climate change, and without the input of fossil fuels the current model of food production that most of the world’s people depend on would likely cease to be viable.xxv 26 | P a g e

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Urban food production takes place in peri-urban farm fields, on rooftops, in backyards, and in community gardens. In most geographical contexts, cities only produce a small share of the food they consume, depending largely on other peri-urban areas to meet their demands. In some geographical areas and in particular periods, however, food production from urban agriculture can play an important role for food security, especially during economic and political crises.

Water supply

Ecosystem services related to water include the regulation of hydrological flows as well as the storage, purification, provision and retention of water. Water is consumed for human needs by both humans directly and by livestock to ensure their survival and health. It is also consumed in very large amounts for crop irrigation or other agricultural purposes and to a lesser extent by industrial processes. Water can be considered as both a provisioning and a regulating service. In terms of regulation, local ecosystems have a large influence on retaining water, managing the volume and timing of eventual run off, recharging of aquifers, control of flooding and the quality of drinking water. All of these regulation aspects also impact directly on the provisioning service of water.xxvi The growth of cities throughout the world presents new challenges for securing water to meet societal needs. Ecosystems provide cities with fresh water for drinking and other human uses and by securing storage and controlled release of water flows. Vegetation cover and forests in the city catchment influences the quantity of available water.

In 2019, some of the world’s cities, including Cape Town South Africa, faced Day Zero, where the city’s taps were predicted to go dry, as a continued supply of water was now in doubt, because its fresh water reservoirs have become dangerously low.xxvii The future of our cities is now affected in two ways as a result of climate change: too much water (notably flooding and sea level rise) or not enough water (leading to drought, extreme heat, and increased fire risk).

Biochemicals

Biochemical ecosystem services primarily allow for the provision of medicines, either directly in the form of traditional medicines, or indirectly through the pharmaceutical industry. The search for useful biochemicals is frequently cited as a reason for conservation of certain ecosystems, particularly tropical rainforests. xxviii Eighty per cent of people in the world are dependent on traditional herbal medicine and more than 50% of modern prescription medicines were originally discovered in plants. Ecosystems also provide other chemical products related to preservation (mostly of foods), cleaning (of bodies and homes etc.), fashion (cosmetic products, pigments, dyes, etc.) and entertainment (paint, fireworks, hobby materials, etc.).xxix Raw materials

The raw materials ecosystem service includes the provision of timber, fibre, stone, earth, sand and various minerals for human products and activities. As human technology has progressed, it has been possible to extract more raw materials from natural ecosystems to meet the assumed needs 27 | P a g e

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of an increased urban population and an increased culture of consumption. Like food production, this ecosystem service has increased in value since the time of the Industrial Revolution, but this has also meant the degradation of other ecosystem services such as climate regulation, habitat provision, erosion prevention and provision of fresh water.xxx Genetic resources

Ecosystems produce genetic information that is either directly used by humans or used indirectly to support the maintenance of healthy ecosystems. Genetic information enables ongoing evolution and therefore the potential for adaption in the constantly changing evolutionary context of life. It ensures the continued health of populations of flora and fauna and plays an important role in maintaining or establishing resiliency.xxxi If a population is more diverse, it is more likely that individuals can adapt to changes in environmental conditions. Selective breeding and genetic engineering are examples of how humans use genetic information from ecosystems as a resource.

Humans have long used the genetic variety of both flora and fauna to manipulate traits of food crops and livestock for desirable characteristics. Genetic engineering is a newer form of manipulating organisms and differs from selective breeding because it can result in organisms that would not have been able to appear naturally, even through a process of selective breeding. The recent controversy over genetically modified organisms (GMO) has challenged the concept of what is now “natural” in our food supply.

Fuel

Fuels and energy derived from biomass, biofuels, plant oils, and wind, hydro and solar energy are an essential ecosystem service. As human technologies change, different kinds of energy sources are needed and can be accessed, expanding the scope and scale of this ecosystem service.

Regulating Services Ecosystem services make our cities livable in many ways.

Urban temperature regulation

Ecological infrastructure in cities regulates local temperatures and buffers the effects of urban heat islands. For example, urban water bodies buffer temperature extremes by absorbing heat in summertime and by releasing it in the wintertime. Likewise, city trees and vegetation reduce temperatures in the hottest months through shading and through absorbing heat from the air by evapotranspiration, particularly when humidity is low. Water from plants absorbs heat as it evaporates, thus cooling the air in the process. Trees can also regulate local surface and air temperatures by reflecting solar radiation and shading surfaces, such as streets and sidewalks that would otherwise absorb heat. Decreasing the heat loading of the city is among the most important regulating ecosystem services trees provide to cities.

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Noise reduction

Traffic, construction, and other human activities make noise a major pollution problem in cities, affecting health through stress. Urban soil and plants can attenuate noise pollution through absorption, deviation, reflection, and refraction of sound waves.

Air purification

Air pollution from transportation, industry, domestic heating, and solid urban waste incineration is a major problem for environmental quality and human health in the urban environment; it leads to increases in respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Vegetation in urban systems can improve air quality by removing pollutants from the atmosphere, including ozone (O3), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and carbon monoxide (CO).

Moderation of climate extremes

Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of environmental extremes; this poses an increasing adaptation challenge for cities, especially for those located in coastal and low-lying areas. Ecological infrastructure formed by mangroves, deltas and coral reefs can act as natural barriers that buffer cities from extreme climate events and hazards, including storms, heat waves, floods, hurricanes, and tsunamis; this infrastructure can drastically reduce the damage caused to coastal cities. Vegetation also stabilizes the ground and reduces the likelihood of landslides.

Devastating effects caused by recent climate events such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 have led a number of scientists to call for a new vision in risk management and vulnerability reduction in cities, based on wise combinations in the use of built infrastructure (e.g., levees) and ecological infrastructure (e.g., protective role of vegetation).

Runoff mitigation

Increasing the impermeable surface area in cities leads to increased volumes of surface water runoff, and thus increases the vulnerability to flooding. Vegetation reduces surface runoff volumes following precipitation events by intercepting water through the leaves and stems. The underlying soil also reduces infiltration rates by acting as a sponge by collecting and storing water in the pore spaces until it percolates as through-flow and base-flow. Urban landscapes with 50–90 % impervious cover can lose 40–83 % of rainfall to surface runoff compared to 13 % in forested landscapes. Interception of rainfall by tree canopies also slows down flooding effects and green areas and reduces the pressure on urban drainage systems by percolating water. Street trees in New York, for instance, intercept 890 million gallons of stormwater annually.

Other means of reducing urban stormwater runoff include linear features (bioswales), green roofs, and rain gardens. For example, green roofs can retain 25 to 100 % of rainfall, depending on rooting depth, roof slope, and the amount of rainfall. Also, green roofs may delay the timing of peak runoff, thus lessening the stress on storm-sewer systems. Rain gardens and bioretention filters can also reduce surface runoff.

Green roofs and green walls are important elements of these new urban wildlife corridors. Green walls refer to all systems that enable the greening of a vertical surface with plants. Green roofs 29 | P a g e

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consist of several layers, including waterproofing, drainage, insulation with soil substrate, and actively growing plants. Depending on their substrate depth, investments in plant care, and irrigation, green roofs are usually categorized as “intensive” or “extensive”. Vegetated buildings may contribute to connectivity. Dispersal is a three-stage process, i.e., emigration, migration, immigration, that results from the interaction between individual species-specific behaviors and the landscape configuration. The connectivity level of an urban greenway depends on the patch specificities (size, quality, redundancy in the matrix, characteristics of the surroundings and species requirements). xxxii Waste treatment

Ecosystems filter out and decompose organic wastes from urban effluents by storing and recycling waste through dilution, assimilation, and chemical re-composition. Wetlands and other aquatic systems, for example, filter wastes from human activities; this process reduces the level of nutrients and pollution in urban wastewater. Likewise, plant communities in urban soils can play an important role in the decomposition of many labile and recalcitrant litter types.

Global climate regulation

Because urban areas exhibit multiple artificial surfaces and high levels of fossil fuel combustion, climate change impacts may be exacerbated in cities. Emissions of greenhouse gases in cities include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrogen oxide (NO), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and ground level ozone (O3). Urban trees act as sinks of CO2 by storing excess carbon as biomass during photosynthesis. Because the amount of CO2 stored is proportional to the biomass of the trees, increasing the number of trees can potentially slow the accumulation of atmospheric carbon in urban areas. Thus, an attractive option for climate change mitigation in cites is tree-planting programs.

The amount of carbon stored and sequestered by urban vegetation has often been found to be quite substantial; for instance, 6,187 t/year in Barcelona and 16,000 t/year in Philadelphia. Urban soils also act as carbon pools. Yet, the amount of carbon a city can offset locally through ecological infrastructure is modest compared to overall city emissions from man made pollutants.

Cultural and Amenity Services Cities also play an important role in the provision of cultural, spiritual and aesthetic values essential to the quality of human life.

Recreation

Because city environments and an urban lifestyle may be stressful for inhabitants, the recreational aspects of urban ecosystems are among the highest valued ecosystem services. Parks, forests, lakes and rivers provide many possibilities for recreation, thereby enhancing human health and spiritual well-being. For example, a park experience may reduce stress, enhance contemplativeness, rejuvenate the city dweller, and provide a sense of peacefulness and tranquility. The recreational value of parks depends on ecological characteristics such as ecological and structural diversity, 30 | P a g e

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but also on built infrastructure such as availability of benches and sport facilities. The recreational opportunities of urban ecosystems also vary with social criteria, including accessibility, penetrability, safety, privacy and comfort, as well as with factors that may cause sensory disturbance (i.e., recreational value decreases if green areas are perceived to be ugly, trashy or too loud). Urban ecosystems, such as community gardens, also offer multiple opportunities for leisure activities and nowadays represent important remnants of the shrinking urban commons.

Aesthetic benefits

Urban ecosystems play an important role as providers of aesthetic and psychological benefits that enrich human life with meanings and emotions. Aesthetic benefits from urban green spaces have been associated with reduced stress and with increased physical and mental health.

A further ecosystem service is the proposed ability of biodiverse urban green spaces to improve psychological well-being. Such restorative ecosystem services provide one of many arguments for biodiversity conservation. In the United Kingdom, over 80% of the population dwells in urban areas, but along with considerable benefits to health, economies, and education, urbanization has brought great challenges for both social and natural system. Mental health problems affect at least 1 in 6 people in the United Kingdom, with an estimated cost to the economy of US$105 billion a year and rising. The improvement and expansion of green space has been proposed as a tool for increasing both ecological and psychological well-being in urban environments, with the UK Faculty of Public Health claiming that: “safe, green spaces may be as effective as prescription drugs in treating some forms of mental illness”. Indeed, 34 English conservation NGO’s have lobbied for 1% of all health spending to be invested in nature-based solutions by 2018.

Many aspects of interaction with green space are being recognized as effective tools for improving well-being. Access to green spaces in urban environments allows for the mental fatigue of modern life to be countered by “psychological restoration and rejuvenation.” Proximity to green space has been found to improve psychological health through decreasing cortisol levels, acting as a buffer to stressful life events, increasing social cohesion, decreasing maternal depression, and increasing general psychological well-being. As well as proximity to green space, the “dose” of green space exposure has been shown to impact the benefits gained, with finding that 27% of depression cases could be prevented by spending five hours or more a week in a garden. xxxiii Cognitive development

Exposure to nature and green space provide multiple opportunities for cognitive development, which increases the potential for stewardship of the environment and for a stronger recognition of the value of ecosystem services. As an example, urban forests and allotment gardens are often used for environmental education purposes and facilitate cognitive coupling to seasons and ecological dynamics in technological and urbanized landscapes. Likewise, urban allotments, community gardens, cemeteries and other green spaces have been found to retain important bodies of local ecological knowledge and embed the potential to compensate observed losses of ecological knowledge in wealthier communities. The benefits of preserving local ecological knowledge have been highlighted in terms of increased resilience and adaptive capacities in urban systems and the potential to sustain and increase other ecosystem services.

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Poverty alleviation

Biodiversity may provide the poor a form of cost effective and readily accessible insurance against risk, particularly food security risks, risks from environmental hazards, and health risks. There is also some discussion in the literature of the risks associated with declining ecosystem resilience.

The evidence suggests that, as the poor have few alternative sources for protecting themselves, they have a higher dependency on biodiversity for dealing with risk.

One research in Bangladesh described how the poor people of Dhaka can be benefited by a wellplanned Urban Forestry Programme. By analysing the present green resources and poverty situation in Dhaka and by using more practical and life experienced example, this project shows some of the major direct and indirect benefits of an Urban Green spaces programme.

Poor people in Dhaka have already a relation in daily life for their livelihood in the city’s green spaces. The standard life quality of the poor can be increased by providing them more urban forestry benefits. Industry on nursery and other forest products are creating employment opportunities to the poor and offering them extra earning sources. As most of the poor in Dhaka do not have access to municipal electricity, clean drinking water or other services, urban forestry can increase the possibility to provide these services through the provision of fuel wood, purified water, air etc. Most of the poor inhabitants in Dhaka are working in the outdoor environment and face environmentally hazardous situations due to severe air pollution. City forests and trees can decrease pollution and offer a safe and healthy working environment for the poor. Moreover, providing shelter during the day and nighttime can save money and provide mental and economic security. Creating recreational places for street children gives them the right to grow up in a healthy environment. Also involving the poor in the decision-making process can improve the empowerment of poor people in society. xxxiv Place value and social cohesion

Place values refer to the affectively charged attachments to places. Research conducted in Stockholm, for example, found a sense of place to be a major driver for environmental stewardship, with interviewees showing strong emotional bonds to their garden plots and surrounding garden areas. Attachment to natural green spaces in cities can also give rise to other important societal benefits, such as social cohesion, promotion of shared interests, and neighborhood participation.

Environmental authorities in the European Union have emphasized the role of urban green space in providing opportunities for interaction between individuals and groups that promote social cohesion and reduce criminality.

Supporting and Habitat Services Urban environments also provide important supporting ecosystem services essential to the maintenance of life processes.

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Pollination, pest regulation and seed dispersal

Pollination, pest regulation and seed dispersal are important processes in the functional diversity of urban ecosystems and can play a critical role in their long-term durability and viability.

However, pollinators, pest regulators and seed dispersers are threatened by habitat loss, pesticide use and fragmentation due to urban development and expansion. In this context, allotment gardens, private gardens and other urban green spaces have been shown to be important source areas. Also, research in urban ecosystem services shows that many formal and informal management practices in allotment gardens, cemeteries and city parks promote functional groups of insects that enhance pollination and bird communities, which in turn enhance seed dispersal and vegetation proliferation.

Soil building

Soil building refers to the formation and retention of soil. It is also associated with ensuring ongoing fertility of soil through cycling or storage of nutrients and through the continuation of microbial activity. Soil fertility is essential for the growth of plants and is enhanced by the supply of nutrients and accumulation of organic material provided by well-functioning ecosystems. Rock weathering can also contribute to soil building.xxxv This ecosystem service is significant because it directly supports a viable human agricultural industry and has important links to decomposition, purification and prevention of disturbance services.xxxvi Soil building could be an important aspect of adaptation to climate change if humans recognise the link between the need to grow food closer to where it is consumed, thus enabling effective cycling of nutrients found in organic composted ‘waste’ to support soil fertility. This ecosystem service is difficult to facilitate through buildings themselves, but careful design of systems and infrastructure could contribute to it in an urban context.

Fixation of solar energy

The fixation of solar energy (photosynthesis) forms the basis of the planet’s food chain. This fixation of solar energy (primary production) by plants occurs above ground, below ground, in marine environments and in fresh water. Humans currently appropriate up to 55% of all the terrestrial products of photosynthesis.

Nutrient cycling

Nutrient cycling services include the regulation of biogeochemical cycles, such as those of oxygen, water, potassium, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur, and carbon, as well as the retention of nutrients within a system. Provision for storage, internal cycling, processing, and acquisition of nutrients are parts of this ecosystem service. In a built environment context, nutrient cycling relates to the use, reuse, and disposal of materials.xxxvii Habitat provision

Habitat provision allows for the shelter and protection of organisms and often provides access to nutritional needs. Habitat provision also has a nursery function in terms of the protection and growth of young organisms. Habitat provision services are relevant to both permanent as well as 33 | P a g e

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transient populations of organisms, and are of extreme importance to maintaining biodiversity, and therefore most of the other ecosystem services.xxxviii Species maintenance

Species maintenance refers to the provision of biodiversity, natural selection, and self-organisation in ecosystems. Genetic information enables ongoing evolution, and therefore, the potential for adaption to a constantly changing context in which all life exists. Genetic diversity ensures the ongoing health of unique biological flora and fauna and plays an important role in maintaining or establishing resiliency. The ecosystem service of species maintenance plays a vital part in ensuring that the species needed to contribute to all ecosystem services continue to exist. xxxix

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Chapter 3: Infrastructure

Climate

Resilience

and

Green

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Climate Resilience and Green Infrastructure There is mounting international concern about how to address the implications of climate change and required resilience for urban areas, particularly in developing countries, where cities are growing rapidly, and a high proportion of urban populations are poor or otherwise vulnerable to climate-related disruptions and potential climate related disasters.xl Urban ecosystems and green infrastructure provide a large roster of critical ecosystem services that can improve human health and well-being while also buffering against natural disturbances and extreme weather events. Maintaining a sustainable and vibrant supply of these services in the face of climate change and other threats is therefore essential toward fostering resilience.

Only healthy, well-functioning ecosystems can provide these valuable services and make a positive contribution to building a city’s resilience. Climate change is a threat to the future health of urban ecosystems. Therefore, not only do we need to ensure the continued existence of urban ecosystems and the services they provide to help build the resilience of cities, we also need to ensure that these urban ecosystems are themselves resilient in the face of climate change. Building a resilient city requires ensuring a resilient supply of urban natural spaces to maintain and increase their quality, quantity and diversity, expanding and making active use of natural spaces and provision of viable green infrastructure.

There are various ways in which the benefits of urban ecosystems can be maximized and contribute to building resilient cities, some of which are illustrated through interventions that enhance three of the qualities of resilient cities: § §

§

Building Robustness: Since urban ecosystems must thrive in a variable climate, it is important to integrate uncertainty and change into municipal management processes while ensuring sustainable delivery of ecosystem services.

Promoting Redundancy: Increasing green spaces and green infrastructure addresses multiple challenges and offers multiple benefits. They often turn out to be more economically viable, even under prevailing economic models, provided that the multiple services and associated benefits for the large number of recipients in cities are properly quantified and recognized.

Encouraging Resourcefulness: Local governments can provide opportunities for active civic engagement through community gardens, residential gardening, greening programs, land acquisition and restoration, and advisory committee participation. These initiatives can provide opportunities for educating young children and transmitting local ecological knowledge. They can also create a strong sense of place, which was found to be a major driver for environmental stewardship.

Protecting and enhancing urban ecosystems provide low-cost and educational opportunities to address climate change and increase resilience in urban areas, with clear health benefits. In light of these observations, considerations could be given to future actions that build on Municipalities early achievements in this area.xli

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Urban Green Infrastructure Urban Green Infrastructure (GIs) can help cities adapt to climate change, and the strategy of expanding GIs in urban planning could play an important role in enhancing the sustainability and resilience of cities and communities. Many studies have shown the benefits of GIs to climate change mitigation and adaptation in urban areas and their role as an important urban planning tool to satisfy environmental, social, and economic needs of urban areas.

Green Infrastructure, according to the European Union (E.U.) definition, "... are networks of natural and semi-natural areas planned at strategic level with other environmental elements, designed and managed in such a way as to provide a wide spectrum of ecosystem services”. This includes green (or blue, in the case of aquatic ecosystems) and other physical elements in areas on land (including coastal areas) and marine areas.

In contrast, gray infrastructure refers to human engineered infrastructure such as treatment facilities, sewer systems, stormwater systems, or storage basins. The term can also be applied to other infrastructure types such as roads and highways, ports, airports, commercial and retail infrastructure, utilities and social infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals. The term “gray” refers to the fact that such structures are often made of concrete and steel. It can also be said that grey infrastructure is comprised of constructed assets that occupy land while green infrastructure is comprised of natural assets that also occupy land.xlii Ideally a mix between Green and Grey Infrastructure should be implemented in cities. While meeting specific service targets, natural green infrastructure provides valuable co-benefits to the community and economy that grey infrastructure projects do not. These additional benefits further enhance community resilience and well-being and increase the return-on-investment to the community.

Climate change adaptation and resilience requires the use of innovative solutions and new tools for urban management and planning. New urban structures, such as low energy consumption buildings and infrastructures, green areas, and the adoption of advanced technologies can mitigate global emissions and local pollution, which promote adaptation to climate change. In the new vision of a city, sustainable and resilient, green areas assume ever greater importance and become important multifunctional resources for the city and its inhabitants.

GIs provide a range of climate change services that can make both a substantial contribution towards adapting to climate change and a limited yet important contribution towards mitigating climate change. Such natural interventions are increasingly being recognized as a desirable 'winwin' approach to combating climate change, as they also help to deliver multiple other social, economic, and environmental benefits.

The definition of the urban adaptation strategies actively involves citizens and other interested stakeholders to favor “non-regret” interventions that can remedy existing problems and bring immediate environmental and socio-economic benefits to help increase adaptive capacity and actions based on an ecosystem focused or “green” approach.

Rather than looking at these as two separate systems, mainstreaming of both green and gray infrastructure may be the key to assuring long term climate resilience in cities. The World Bank 37 | P a g e

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states that there is mounting evidence that natural green infrastructure systems can be combined with traditional gray infrastructure to provide lower-cost and more resilient services. Over time, and done properly, combining green and gray infrastructure offers the potential to help provide water, food, and energy to growing populations, lift communities out of poverty, and mitigate climate change.xliii Despite the ecological, cultural and economic importance of these green infrastructure services, ecosystems and the biodiversity that underpins them are still being degraded and lost at an unprecedented scale. One major reason for this is that the contribution of ecosystems to human welfare is still underestimated and not fully recognized in most planning and decision-making processes, in other words, the benefits of their services are not, or only partly, captured in conventional market economics. The challenge is measuring and conveying the economic value of biodiversity to instill its important role in the minds of all municipalities.

The 100 Resilient Cities initiative notes this disconnect between the significant value of nature to cities and the lack of importance placed on it by municipal planners. They state that even if governments and businesses alike are starting to recognize nature as a critical component of thriving, resilient cities, these considerations are all too often absent from the decisions that planners and policymakers are taking that will ultimately shape the urban landscapes of our cities in the years to come. The fact that 60% of the area projected to be urban by 2050 has yet to be built, presents both a challenge and an opportunity to change direction as to how we plan to incorporate nature.

The opportunity to build and rebuild resilient and healthy communities by taking advantage of green infrastructure’s many benefits is available to every city. While there will be many challenges, these solutions will provide some of the most productive and cost-effective options to meet cities’ challenges. At the same time, they will provide valuable co-benefits that will make cities better places to live for residents struggling with a broad array of shocks and stresses.

Urban biodiversity provides ecological services that are the foundation of healthy, resilient, and sustainable communities. As the growing population of Latin America becomes increasingly concentrated in cities and as our climate becomes more and more unpredictable, decision makers and managers are challenged to maintain existing service levels. Integrating nature into urban landscapes provides some of the best and often the only opportunities to meet city objectives while helping to achieve local and global sustainability goals.

Promoting Climate Resilience in Cities There are many ways that climate resilience in cities can be promoted.

Strategic

§

Assess natural urban spaces to gain knowledge and a better understanding of the current distribution, abundance, trends and status of biodiversity and natural areas. Assessments and long-term monitoring are essential to the protection and resilience of natural spaces.

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§

§

§

Actively consider restoration and rehabilitation projects to assist in the recovery of natural spaces that have been degraded, damaged or destroyed, particularly along animal migration corridors, to encourage movement and resupply of species. Restoring degraded ecosystems has been an important tool that contributes to reducing vulnerability to natural hazards, enhancing ecological networks and improving the quality of life in many large urban centres.

Promote adaptability as a response to significant environmental change in the future, and integrate it into natural spaces management programs. This means that actions and initiatives should be taken in response to actual or projected climatic changes, thus reducing the effects of climate change on natural systems. This could include guidelines for planting and selecting vegetation that is adaptable to a changing climate.

Consider capacity building and professional development for involved professionals, such as road and transportation authorities, to better enable them to take steps toward mainstreaming green infrastructure in city planning and investment decisions.

Regulatory/Administrative

§

§

§ §

Consider creative administrative processes to introduce or enhance assessments, approval processes, development limitations, surcharges, fees, incentives and rebates as well as by-law enforcement mechanisms within local regulatory regimes to ensure the sustainable management and protection of natural spaces.

Integrate biodiversity and green infrastructure guidelines into city planning, streetscape design and planning to mimic natural habitat and functions. Integration is particularly encouraged when replacing ageing infrastructure. Examples include bioswales, constructed wetlands, stormwater detention ponds, rain gardens, tree-lined streets, permeable pavement, and green roofs and walls.

Consider integrating urban ecosystems and natural infrastructure into asset management programs to help ensure ecosystems function properly and yield expected environmental services.

Consider regulatory compliance for developers to ensure that new developments integrate natural features and capitalize on opportunities to create and enhance green infrastructure and natural landscape features.

Economic Instruments

§

Explore and identify incentive or subsidy programs to encourage developers to integrate natural features and green infrastructure into new development. The benefits of such incentive programs have been demonstrated by initiatives such as Toronto’s Eco-Roof Incentive Program.

Voluntary/Community Linkages

§

Engage citizens in neighbourhood and city planning processes and promote learning opportunities. Connecting urban residents through public engagement with nature will build awareness and encourage ecological literacy. Cities should advertise best management practices for naturalizing private property and consider homeowner grants to enable their implementation.

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§

Promote nature and biodiversity programming in schools and support programs that encourage students to learn about natural spaces and biodiversity in their cities.

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Chapter 4: Pressures on Biodiversity

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Pressures on Biodiversity in Cities Despite the benefits of biodiversity to cities, its very existence is threatened or degraded by urban pressures, development activities and human fears and emotions.

Ecosystem Disservices Ecosystem disservices (EDS) can be defined as “the ecosystem-generated functions, processes and attributes that result in perceived or actual negative impacts on human well-being”.xliv EDS are functions or properties of ecosystems that cause effects that are perceived as harmful, unpleasant or unwanted. Examples of EDS include pest damages to agriculture, pollen causing allergic reactions or fear related to nighttime in urban parks. Disservices can result from functioning of relatively undisturbed ecosystems or they can be effects or side-effects of deliberate manipulation of ecosystems.

These ecosystem disservices have a strong influence on how urban green areas are experienced, valued, used and, eventually, developed. The key challenge is to combine expectations modified by urban lifestyles with the services that urban ecosystems produce.

Aesthetic issues

Areas that are not intensively managed or looked after are often considered unpleasant and ugly, such as parks with weeds and dense vegetation, old industrial brownfield areas and degraded areas considered by many as wasteland. Certain sounds smells and behaviour of plants and animals can irritate some people; for example, the presence of bird and dog excrement on the ground are considered as an aesthetic and hygiene problem. Many species, such as foxes or birds extracting food from trash bins can litter the environment and be perceived as a nuisance.

Safety issues

Areas with poor management but with high biodiversity value are often felt to be unsafe, especially in nighttime due to a lack of lighting. Green space can be perceived as dangerous because it may facilitate crime by providing a hiding place for perpetrators of crime and may conceal criminal elements or activity. They are often associated with little or no presence of security forces. The potential for encounters with physical danger (e.g., bad weather, poisonous animals, or plants) may evoke strong fears or other negative emotions in wild environments. Wild or semi-wild animals like bats, rats, foxes, deer, or even large predators in large park areas can also cause fear, anxiety and inconvenience.

Economic issues

Economic aspects to be considered when planning for urban biodiversity for instance follow: §

Maintaining green areas prevents more profitable use, such as construction, industrial or real estate.

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§ § § §

Market based direct gains from rich biodiversity often do not exist or they are allocated to other times or places.

Damage to structures can occur e.g. by decomposition of wood construction products by microbial activity, bird excrements accelerating corrosion, tree roots damaging pavements, or animals digging nesting holes.

Costs are caused by attempts to remove unwanted species (e.g. weeds, birds nesting in wrong places, invasive species). Presence of protected species can restrict other uses of the area.

Planting, maintaining and removing plant coverage creates substantial costs. Harmful species can damage those species that are cared for and thus cause economic loss (e.g. animals eating plantations, pests, fungi).

Mobility issues

§ §

Large green or blue areas can obstruct fast and comfortable transportation modes, especially the use of motorized transportation.

While trees along streets and roads may increase traffic safety because they make car drivers slow down, unkempt plants growing along roads can decrease visibility and increase the risk for traffic accidents. Leaves falling from trees can increase the braking distances of cars, buses and rail services.

Some of the disservices identified here may be considered as being irrelevant, or of negligible importance, when compared with value of ecosystem services essential to the fulfillment of basic human needs such as eating, drinking and breathing. However, these ecosystem disservices become important detractors when considered against everyday practices of urban people in affluent societies. For example, aesthetic discomforts that are not a threat to the survival of urban residents can still raise demands for management options that are destructive for urban biodiversity, such as demands for intensively managed, artificially illuminated, largely paved and barren green open space.xlv Awareness and Education Clearly, cities have an important role to play in rising general awareness of urban residents as to the value of natural areas. This includes providing more opportunities for public involvement in the active stewardship of natural areas, as well as improved education and involvement of the young population. In an increasingly urbanized environment, green space and biodiversity provide an important opportunity for learning. Only with widespread awareness and shared commitment to conservation will there be the political will to find solutions that promote biodiversity over other values.

Vulnerable Communities, Resettlement and Biodiversity Climate change poses disproportionate risks to human and natural systems due to differences in vulnerability and exposure. According to the IPCC (2014), vulnerability is the propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected. It is the result of a complex set of drivers and interacting conditions of a system that derive from the historical and prevailing cultural, social, environmental, 43 | P a g e

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political, and economic contexts. People who are socially, economically, culturally, politically, institutionally, or otherwise marginalized are especially vulnerable to climate change (IPCC, 2014). The rural and urban poor, and remote groups and communities have limited adaptive capacity due to their economic status, thereby making them more vulnerable than other members of the society.xlvi The coercive, top-down approach to managing protected areas has created socio-cultural disruption and often even failed to conserve biodiversity. Some biodiversity initiatives with a topdown conservation approach have led to management decisions that seriously threatened the livelihood and cultural heritage of local people, such as a resettlement programme established to move people from villages inside a natural park, and the reduction of access to resources and traditional rights.

In the wake of the creation of protected areas, local communities have frequently been subjected to eviction, often with grave consequences to their identity and future development. Indeed, eviction also creates a kind of ‘socio-cultural stress’. Relocated populations lose not only the economic base of their survival, but also undergo a “considerable reduction of their cultural heritage, due to the temporary or definitive loss of their behavioural models, their economic activities, their institutions and their symbols”. xlvii Evaluations of these processes have highlighted how the living condition of the communities evicted from the forests has become worse as a direct result of their dislocation. xlviii Indeed, they are generally relocated in inadequate areas that provide opportunities for subsistence that are often entirely insufficient for them.

In recent times, concern has been raised on the best practices that can be adopted within protected areas for the sustainable conservation of natural resources. xlix The realization by many countries that the way forward in the control of conflicts within protected areas should involve the adoption of measures that seek to integrate the indigenous communities into the conservation scheme, is rapidly gaining momentum. In other words, there is a need to ensure that the bottom-up rather than the top-down management approach is practised within protected areas.

The bottom-up management approach will enable communities in surrounding protected areas to be actively involved in the management and administration of their regions. In addition to this, there is a need for protected area managers to put in place measures that can aid communities to enhance their living standards, e.g., improved educational and infrastructure facilities. l Alternative development options (e.g., skills acquisition training in tailoring, sustainable farming, carpentry, etc.) can provide a background for the shift from dependence on the natural environment to sustainable forms of livelihood development.

Poverty and Economic Well-Being Nowhere is the demand for ecosystem services greater than in cities, due to the large and increasing number of people now residing in urban areas. Furthermore, the wealth that cities attract results in the intensive use of resources and resultant production of waste. Nevertheless, cities offer a profound array of possibilities for more efficient lifestyles. Ecosystem services relied upon by citizens are produced mostly outside cities, and often at great distances beyond national and even continental borders, thanks to extensive and effective modern supply lines. The urban poor are 44 | P a g e

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privy to many ecosystem services only to the extent that they can exchange money for them. Better management of, and access to, some basic locally produced ecosystem services, however, could reduce poverty and increase food security in cities.

Urban slums are typically built on marginal land, vulnerable to natural risks such as floods, fire and landslides. Although the rate of slum growth is decreasing globally and the proportion of urban populations living in slums has decreased from 39 to 32 per cent between 2000 and 2010, the absolute number of slum dwellers has grown considerably and is expected to continue doing so.

Again, ecosystem services can moderate these effects. For example, the conservation or restoration of natural vegetation helps to maintain slope stability and prevent landslides.

Cities, especially when they develop without formal planning, affect biodiversity through direct encroachment on ecosystems through straightforward land-use change, for example in the form of spontaneous housing development and its associated services and infrastructure. A number of actions are required in order to deal with the formidable issues of informal expansion and ecological degradation. Ecosystem based solutions offer the opportunity to deal with both at the same time. Based on local challenges, several local governments are taking steps in this direction. li

In Havana, Cuba, out of necessity, the city has become a leader in urban agriculture. Starting in the early 1990s, agricultural land reform, reduction of petroleum access and adoption of biological fertilizers and pest controls have brought about a vibrant culture of sustainable food production.

Besides the immediate benefit of improved food security, health and income have improved. The agriculture program and related animal husbandry and supporting areas (seeds, organic manure, technical education, etc.) are the source of over 350,000 new jobs.

The Environmental Management Department of eThekwini Municipality, South Africa, has initiated the ‘Working for Ecosystems’ program to alleviate poverty through jobs skills training for women, youth and the disabled in environmental management work. Additionally, eThekwini has established a medicinal plant nursery and extension programs to combat over-harvesting in the wild and support the sustainable future of those whose livelihoods depend on medicinal species.

Urban Growth and Population Pressure By 2030, the world is expected to add another billion people or so, bringing the total population to roughly 8.5 billion. And with humans becoming increasingly urban, urban sprawl and consequent loss of natural habitat will only worsen, taking up valuable and precious space that wild birds, mammals, plants, and other life forms call home.

The world’s cities already occupy areas important to biodiversity. At least 423 large cities (with each more than 300,000 people) across the globe occur within 36 biodiversity hotspots: regions that harbor a high diversity of animal and plant species, found virtually nowhere else in the world.

And considering the growth trajectory of these cities – as modeled by Seto Lab/Yale Universitya staggering 90 percent of them could end up destroying the natural habitats of endangered species over the next decade or so.

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Strengthening Urban Governance There are many institutional considerations and challenges in relation to biodiversity planning and inclusion.

Connecting ecosystem service values to urban policy and governance

Local municipal authorities throughout the world are examining innovative ways to maintain and increase ecological infrastructure as a part of urban planning and design. Yet, many studies have suggested that the ability of local authorities to implement ecological infrastructure is not sufficiently recognized and hence lacks further integration into spatial planning systems.

Economic and non-economic valuation of ecosystem services is often demanded by policy makers and practitioners as supporting information to guide decisions in urban planning and governance.

Ways in which valuation can inform urban planning include awareness raising, economic accounting, priority-setting, incentive design, and litigation, thus broadly reflecting the objectives of recognizing, demonstrating, and capturing value.

Local governments can have jurisdiction over parks, urban forests, and conservation areas, and are well-positioned to integrate and mainstream biodiversity management into their local culture and day-to-day operations. With shifting pressures from development and environmental change, municipalities must be efficient at adapting their practices and policies to meet growing future demands. Though this may seem like a tall order, there are a number of municipalities that are rising to the challenge and joining a growing international community of those who consider local biodiversity protection as essential to sustainable community and urban development.

Policy and program development

Plan and policy development are one of the key areas municipalities can influence to shape their community’s conservation practices. By prioritizing green infrastructure development and utilizing proactive land use planning tools, policy as an implementation tool helps to align the municipality’s overall vision for their community to what is happening on the ground.

Networks and partnerships

Municipalities cannot work in isolation and isolated policy development is often not enough to promote biodiversity. Considering that privately owned land usually makes up a significant proportion of a municipality’s land and greenspace area, engaging with private landowners to encourage at-home and at work stewardship and biodiversity awareness greatly enhances regional biodiversity and sustainable practices.

Meaningful partnerships and collaborations allow for new perspectives to emerge, ideas to become actions, and key environmental issues like biodiversity to become mainstreamed.

Active networks within cities, both social and ecological, enhance the capacity for biodiverse communities while highlighting the importance of resilience-building. Maintaining these networks shows the impact that cumulative local actions can have on a community.

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Community engagement

Understanding that biodiversity conservation requires public awareness and support, cities need to make public engagement and education priorities within their planning efforts. To engage people in biodiversity and other environmental issues, one must provide the opportunity for enhanced understanding that empowers individuals to make choices and take action based on sound science and reliable recommendations.

To this end, there are some real challenges. Recent surveys show that, despite growing public concern, environmental issues still rank below many other problems, such as terrorism, health care, the economy, and (in the U.S.) family values. Moreover, much of the recent upswing in interest in the environment is due to the marked shift in attention to global warming away from other environmental problems such as destruction of ecosystems, water pollution, overpopulation, and biodiversity loss.

Such a change in public focus often comes with a tendency to decouple various environmental problems and ignore their synergistic effects. Exacerbating this problem are arguments from the media and other sources that discourage public interest in environmental topics by characterizing the science behind them as overly complex, immersed in debate and controversy, and detached from human interests. Educational programming, media, exhibitions, and other means of public outreach should build on the welcome increase in public interest in global warming by demonstrating the interplay of various environmental disruptions.

In the case of biodiversity, the importance of species in providing ecosystem services, natural beauty and pleasure, and sustaining human lives is a message that requires constant attention and recrafting to impact diverse audiences.lii Income

Is biodiversity preservation only for the wealthy? Cities in Latin America exhibit extreme social and economic imbalances, which generate a complex mosaic of urban settlement structures, economic inequity, social stratification and differing ecosystem management systems. Lowincome neighborhoods are typically either interspersed with the local ecosystems in peri-urban areas or completely lacking green spaces. High-income neighborhoods have a higher concentration of green areas but are usually dominated by non-native species. Furthermore, the value of biodiversity, and ecosystem services are not typically acknowledged in urban planning not only for their ecological value but also as key elements integral to the quality of life of the city inhabitants and human well-being.

The knowledge base is also limited, as research on the consequences of rapid urbanization on biodiversity and ecosystem services in Latin America is poorly developed and understood.

However, initiatives to increase focus in urban planning and support for ecosystems are being taken and examples have been found of urban inhabitants actively promoting stewardship of urban green spaces in Latin America.

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Land acquisition

For municipalities, land acquisition and securement is the most effective way to protect biodiversity and valuable natural areas; nature must be purchased in order to protect it.

Unfortunately, the enabling legislation for many local governments is limited with respect to nature protection as they have no authority over private lands, forests and provincial or federal land. Often natural areas are in prime areas slated for urban development and high land values can preclude purchase.

Local leadership

Governments of all levels share the goal of guaranteeing the health, well-being, and safety of municipal communities. However, local leaders such as mayors and councillors, face many challenges when balancing current needs and future visioning. Impacts to their community such as more frequent storms, extreme heat, aging infrastructure, and shifts in funding for activities and programs are all issues that are being addressed locally. A good example of responding to local biodiversity loss is shown by efforts of the City of Edmonton and Montréal’s Mayors to address it as a serious community need. They are influencing municipal policy and engagement at the highest level, promoting biodiversity conservation and other global leaders are taking notice. liii Urban ecological stewardship

Increasing people’s awareness of how their actions impact not only their immediate local environment, but the biosphere as a whole, is not just a matter of promoting proximity to green areas, effective biodiversity stewardship is also about getting involved, which in turn may be facilitated by institutional designs and social movements. Urban environmental stewardship combines land management with the desires of civil society, the private sector and government agencies. All must work together in order for effective biodiversity conservation to be realized.

Stewardship occurs across the entire landscape gradient, from wildlands to urban areas, and is conducted on both public and private lands. Civic urban stewardship, beyond that of municipal governments, requires volunteer efforts by citizens on public or quasi-public lands within higher density urban areas. Citizens of all ages need to volunteer for projects and work on lands they do not personally own. Such projects include park management, open space restoration, street tree planting, and development of community gardens.

Public, private and citizen collaboration

Citizens living in cities where public entities are committed to the development of urban resilience are increasingly aware that the entire responsibility for preventing, responding to and recovering from crises cannot fully fall on public entities and private companies. In fact, citizens are more and more required to prepare for, respond to and recover from crises. To that end, there is an emerging need to involve not only public entities and private companies but also citizens in the process of building a city’s resilience in order to understand the different perspectives on the same reality.

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Chapter 5: Tools for Measuring Biodiversity in Cities

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Tools for Measuring Biodiversity in Cities Several tools have been developed to promote biodiversity within the urban environment. The most well known is the City Biodiversity Index or Singapore Index.

City Biodiversity Index Initial environmental indices for cities focused on issues such as clean water, sanitation, energy efficiency, air quality, and waste management. Current biodiversity indicators available are implemented at the national level, and while there are numerous publications and studies done on urban biodiversity, there was no one single index that consolidates all these biodiversity related indicators at the local level. In COP-9 of 2008, Singapore’s then Minister for National Development, Mr. Mah Bow Tan, proposed the establishment of a single city biodiversity index to benchmark biodiversity conservation efforts in cities.

Hence, the National Parks Board of Singapore (NParks), together with experts from various countries, assisted the Secretariat of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) to develop the Singapore Index. The initial result was the formulation of the ‘Singapore Index on Cities’ Biodiversity or ‘Singapore Index (SI)’, so named in recognition of Singapore’s contribution and leadership to urban biodiversity conservation. This was the first self-assessment tool to help cities evaluate and benchmark their individual biodiversity conservation efforts.

The City Biodiversity Index, now renamed from the Singapore Index, is a self-assessment tool for cities to evaluate and monitor the progress of their biodiversity conservation efforts against their own individual baselines. It comprises of the following elements: a) the “Profile of the City”, which provides background information on the city; and b) 23 indicators that measure native biodiversity, ecosystem services provided by biodiversity, and governance and management of biodiversity (see Figure 1). Measurement of these indices is based on guidelines and methodology provided in the User’s Manual on the Singapore Index on Cities Biodiversity.liv The scoring of the City Biodiversity Index is quantitative in nature. Each indicator is assigned a scoring range between zero and four points, with a total possible maximum score of 92 points. The year in which a city first embarks on this scoring will be taken as the baseline year, and this will be measured against future applications of the Index to chart its progress in conserving biodiversity.

Cities that have applied the City Biodiversity Index have found that: a) the process facilitated capacity-building in biodiversity conservation, b) the indicators also function as biodiversity conservation guidelines, and c) the quantitative scoring could assist in setting priorities for conservation actions and budget allocation.

The City Biodiversity Index is a dynamic tool. Moving forward, it is imperative that the Index remains relevant, credible, and flexible enough to be adapted into broader frameworks. The true measure of success is the regular and long-term application of the City Biodiversity Index by cities to chart their progress in conserving biodiversity.lv 50 | P a g e

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Figure 1: Framework of the Singapore Index on Cities Biodiversity

Convention on Biological Diversity The Convention on Biological Diversity or CBD, known informally as the Biodiversity Convention, is an international legally binding treaty and was opened for signature at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro on 5 June 1992 and entered into force on 29 December 1993. The Convention has three main goals including: the conservation of biodiversity; the sustainable use 51 | P a g e

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of its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from genetic resources, in other words, to develop national strategies for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

The convention calls for the conservation of genetic resources by preserving sensitive ecosystems, rehabilitating degraded ecosystems, and enacting legislation that protects endangered plant and animal species. Additionally, the CBD requests financial assistance for developing countries so that they can afford programs designed to conserve their biological resources.

The Conference of Parties, the governing body of the convention, has established thematic programs that set goals and strategies for conserving genetic resources in each of several major types of ecosystems: marine and coastal areas, inland waterways, forests, mountain areas, agricultural areas, and dry and sub humid lands. The governance of cities, and the way they are designed, planned and managed, is also important for determining the outcomes of planning decisions and their influences on the biodiversity. Understanding how cities can create better governance mechanisms to effectively help in the preservation of biodiversity is the key to implementing the directives of the CBD. ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability is a global network of more than 1,750 local and regional governments committed to sustainable urban development. Active in 100+ countries, their main objective is to influence sustainability policy and drive local action for low emission, naturebased, equitable, resilient, and circular development.

ICLEI aims to make sustainability an integral part of urban development and to create systemic change in urban areas through practical and integrated solutions. The organization also helps cities, towns and regions to anticipate and respond to complex challenges, from rapid urbanization and climate change to ecosystem degradation and inequity.

Local and regional governments in the ICLEI network confront these challenges by incorporating sustainability into their daily operations and policy. ICLEI also invests in the capacity and knowledge needed to design solutions and make decisions informed by data, scientific evidence and local realities and pressures.

The entity works by creating connections among the local, regional, national, and global governmental levels and advocating for robust national and global sustainability policies that reflect the interests of local and regional governments and their communities.

Lab Program – Local Action for Biodiversity Local Action for Biodiversity (LAB) is a unique global biodiversity programme run by The ICLEI Cities Biodiversity Center, in partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). LAB employs an approach which is action oriented and customized for local and regional authorities around the world. The LAB Program is aimed at improving and enhancing ecosystem management at the local level and is recognized globally as the leading results-driven local government biodiversity initiative.

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Established in 2006 as a pilot program with 21 pioneering local governments from across the globe, the LAB Program has expanded to include numerous local governments and additional focus areas, including communication, education and public awareness (CEPA) and climate change, aimed at tackling the complex challenges facing local biodiversity management. The LAB Program’s results-based record and contributing to local biodiversity planning and management makes LAB a key component of the CBD’s Global Partnership on Local and Sub-national Action for Biodiversity, which is dedicated to ensuring the achievement of the CBD objectives through joint local action.

By recognising the role of local governments in the sustainable management of urban biodiversity, ICLEI’s LAB Programme highlights the need for increased political support for biodiversity at the local level and the integration of biodiversity considerations into all aspects of local governance.

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Chapter 6: Biodiversity by Design

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Biodiversity by Design If we think of the city as part of nature – how can our urban environment best cohabit with the natural world? How can we design our built form to support healthy ecosystems: to give biodiversity a foothold, however small, to grow and spread along street rights-of-way, on rooftops; in tiny rain gardens, backyards, wildflower meadows; to insert green connections between pockets of habitat; to provide crossings over or under roads and rail corridors; to build artificial habitats to provide new shelter; and to design buildings and structures to reduce bird collisions by making glass visible. Strategic habitat interventions and corridors will better integrate the city’s natural heritage system and open space network and contribute to a more biodiverse and resilient urban ecosystem.

How urban form is designed and built in the city environment can help promote biodiversity conservation and development.

Urban Design Through the history of cities, most attempts to increase urban biodiversity have been restricted solely to managing a certain natural area or conserving and restoring certain habitats inside the city core. The main goal of these activities initially was to provide recreation areas for urban residents, such as urban parks and green belts, rather than improving urban biodiversity. As a result, most planning processes and urban land use management policies were based on the immediate urban development and form issues and ignored wider ecological patterns and connectivity within urban areas.

City-level biodiversity

There is much interest in how urbanization drives land-use change and alters biological assemblages through local species extinctions and other changes in population densities.

Increasingly, such attention is now focusing on these effects at the whole-city scale, i.e. how do the characteristics of entire cities affect their biodiversity?

City context

The native biodiversity present in a city is inevitably a subset of the species pool in the wider surrounding area, and thus the context of a city’s location can have a considerable influence on its biodiversity. The climatic zone in which a city is embedded can also influence biodiversity responses to urbanization. Cities embedded within arid regions may have less marked reductions in biodiversity than those located in other regions. lvi In part this may arise from the habitatmatching hypothesis which suggests that locally native species cope better with urbanization when it creates more similar habitats to a species’ native habitat. The open nature of urban parks and gardens is more similar to the open habitats that dominate arid regions than the dense natural vegetation that typically occurs in more mesic regions.

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in urban areas. Even though cities tend to support a decreasing proportion of the regional species pool as the size of that pool increases, there is an overall increase in city-level species richness as the size of the species pool increases because there are more potential colonists.lvii City size

City size is another attribute that varies markedly across urban areas and has considerable potential to influence the structure of biotic assemblages that can persist in the urban environment. City size can accurately predict numerous attributes including land-use, resource flows and economic productivity from simple power-law scaling relationships. These two elements, size and green space, interact via variation in density, both of built environment, and of people. Large, low density cities may be very different from smaller, high density ones. Importantly, traits such as city size and density can be influenced by the nature of planning and legislative regimes, potentially providing a means for influencing the impact of increasing urban expansion on biodiversity. lviii Environmental conditions and associated selection pressures arising from urbanization are frequently more intense in large cities. Large urban areas tend to have more intense urban heat islands, more modified precipitation regimes, and to be more polluted than smaller ones.

Any negative effects of city size on biodiversity may be reduced in large cities if they contain a greater proportion of green space, and that greenspace increases connectivity between urban and rural populations. lix City age

The amount of time that has elapsed since an urban area was developed, i.e. city age, can influence the number and type of species found in that city through a diverse set of mechanisms that are linked to local colonization and extinction rates. Older urban areas have had more time for the adverse impacts of urbanization to be realized, i.e. a greater proportion of a city’s extinction debt will have already been realized, thus reducing the number of native species, in older urban areas more time has also been available for species to adjust to urban selection pressureslx, or to recolonize vegetated areas, which is likely to be particularly important for species that require mature vegetation (due to the time required for newly planted vegetation to mature).

Ecological Design Within-biodiversity

Research into biodiversity at the level of the whole city is an emerging field that clearly highlights that city-level attributes can influence species assemblages. The distribution of biodiversity within a city and fine-scale spatial variation in the composition of urban species assemblages is, however, highly dependent on local spatial variation in factors such as land-use and land-cover within cities.

Patch size

Urban green spaces are characterized by highly fragmented, small, and isolated patches of green space, as has been exemplified by the United Kingdom, where only 13% of urban tree (or woody 56 | P a g e

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vegetation) cover occurs in patches larger than 0.25 hectare. The positive effect of urban green space area within a city on species richness has been well documented for a range of taxa and it is now well established that the amount of urban green space in cities is an important determinant of biodiversity.lxi However, much remains unknown about how large individual patch sizes need to be, and evidence suggests that patch size and quality are important factors driving both plant and animal populations in cities.lxii Another challenge regarding assessment of the impacts of patch size on biodiversity relates to defining green space patches with reference to their borders with hard surfaces and the composition of the urban matrix. The ability of green space to support biodiversity can be moderated by urban intensity and structure. For instance, green spaces in the city core may not support the same species numbers as comparable green spaces in a suburban matrix. Clearly, a better understanding of patch size and of the extent of the overall network of patches of multiple taxa is required to better inform conservation initiatives.

Genetic flow and bottlenecks

Urbanization is predicted to strongly influence genetic drift, which produces stochastic changes in allele frequencies between generations. Genetic drift is most prominent in small, isolated populations, and thus its evolutionary influence within cities is expected to increase whenever urbanization results in reduced population sizes or greater isolation. Urbanization can cause such reductions in multiple ways, including the loss of natural habitat caused by fragmentation, founder effects associated with the establishment of new urban populations, and severe bottlenecks due to direct selection pressures from humans (such as pesticides). These scenarios are predicted to result in both a loss of genetic diversity within populations and increased differentiation between populations.

Urban areas can have diverse effects on the dispersal of individuals and their alleles (gene flow).

Features of urban landscapes that impede gene flow (such as roads, buildings, and rivers) may facilitate genetic divergence between populations on opposite sides of a barrier, in combination with genetic drift or selection. Even incomplete barriers, such as smaller roads or manicured green spaces, may restrict connectivity between urban populations. By contrast, urban features that increase gene flow (such as habitat corridors) may homogenize allele frequencies, increase genetic diversity within populations, and erode differentiation between populations. Many of the examples of urban genetic drift described above result from barriers, particularly impervious surfaces such as roads and buildings, that restrict gene flow between urban habitat fragments. Connecting corridors from urban biodiversity patches to peri urban more continuous environments are very important.

Peri-urban areas

Peri-urban areas have enormous potential to play a positive role in enhancing urban sustainability at the global level. This is because cities in all countries must face the challenges posed by urban sprawl. There are many definitions associated with peri-urban areas. The common feature of the many different types of space that are considered peri-urban is that they are transition spaces with some degree of intermingling of urban and rural uses. There is a particularly strong difference 57 | P a g e

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between the peri-urban areas of developing countries characterized by pollution of land and waterways, poverty and informal settlement; and those of developed nations of Europe characterized by low levels of mobility, economic performance, landscape integrity and environmental quality. Within both the developed and developing world, it is important to recognize the variegated nature of the territory and the variety of peri-urban areas it contains.lxiii Peri-urban areas are generally territories affected by strong expansion processes of the city, processes that are weakly opposed by marginal agricultural activities, but where the expectations and interests of communities are often high. Thus, they tend to have a chaotic and fragmented mix of urban and rural functions, and host uses that may be unwanted by communities – business parks, big entertainment buildings and shopping centres. Planning policies and strategies for peri-urban areas must consider their variety and begin from knowledge of the specific dynamics and development opportunities of each area. Policies and interventions will benefit from experience of approaches taken elsewhere, especially the evaluation of innovative approaches.

Green Roofs and Walls In many cities around the world, green roofs and walls are being used to enhance urban biodiversity to attract funding and public support for their construction. Conserving the Earth’s biological diversity is essential. Because this challenge is complex, the solutions to alleviating the current rate of biodiversity loss must be creative, coordinated, and intentional. To this end, the community of architects, engineers, city planners and scientists alike are met with a unique opportunity to leverage future green roof infrastructure to achieve a multitude of goals. A united effort has the potential to enhance the benefits of green roofs and walls to move beyond the standard building efficiency benefits they provide to contribute to and enhance biodiversity within the urban landscape. Recent studies in urban ecology suggest that although small habitat patches in cities are subject to extreme environmental stressors, they have the potential to support many elements of biodiversity and should not be overlooked for their conservation value. Green roofs and green walls represent novel habitats in the urban environment and can contribute to the goals of reconciliation ecology by increasing the availability of living spaces for a variety of organisms.

When green roofs and walls are installed, they create unique habitats on what is often otherwise unutilized space. These novel systems provide a variety of environmental benefits including stormwater capture and retention, pollution abatement, thermal insulation of buildings and mitigation of the urban heat island effect through evaporative cooling mechanisms. These beneficial aspects of green roofs and walls can indirectly support a variety of organisms in the urban environment. Green roofs can also directly support organisms by providing unique habitat.

Conditions on green roofs are hotter, drier and windier compared to the ground level. The ecosystem on green roofs therefore represents an extreme of local conditions, which can benefit a subset of local species.

By supporting small communities, green roofs and walls can serve as an important component of a larger heterogeneous meta-community, increasing the total richness and diversity of species that can use the urban landscape.

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Some green roofs are now designed to mimic natural habitats which share similar harsh environmental properties in hopes of providing alternatives to in situ conservation of some species.

This type of design allows green roofs to support unique plant and animal species that would not otherwise be found in the urban environment. If designed with specific ecological goals in mind, green roofs have the potential to support an even greater diversity of local native organisms and processes ex situ, thereby slowing biodiversity loss. Because green roofs are entirely engineered habitats, considerations should be taken at each step of the design process in order to ensure that the variety of functions provided by green roofs is maximized. More green roofs around the world are now built with broad ecological goals such as biodiversity conservation in mind. While there is certainly no one method that is appropriate for use on all green roofs, there are many ways that ecosystem, species and genetic diversity can be enhanced. Benefits of green roofs and walls are further examined in Annex 1.

As the number of green roofs and walls continues to rise globally, so does the potential of this technology to contribute to both local and global biodiversity support. Conservation efforts that enhance biodiversity on individual green roofs can contribute to larger collective and systematic efforts to create connected habitats and encourage overall genetic, species and ecosystem diversity in cities. As with biodiversity conservation in all habitats, urban planners and policy makers will need to set both specific short-term targets as well as long-term goals in order to ensure that biodiversity is sustained in the future The needs of every city are unique but biodiversity conservation can be achieved on green roofs and walls when their design and management is incorporated into multi-scale and multi-stakeholder planning. lxiv

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Chapter 7: Best Practice Case Studies for Biodiversity

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Best Practice Case Studies for Biodiversity This section provides municipal case studies that can be used to help promote the conservation of biodiversity in Latin American cities.

Edmonton, Canada: Engagement

Mainstreaming

Biodiversity

through

Design

and

The City of Edmonton, Alberta is a large urban centre with the majority of its’ population living in the city core. The topography of the City is relatively flat but there are many river valley parks that provide opportunities to enhance and protect valued ecosystems. Biodiversity protection is key among City government staff and residents as both groups place a high value on natural spaces.

The City has become a player in international dialogues as they are a member of many global biodiversity protection efforts, such as: Local Action for Biodiversity (a joint initiative hosted by the ICLEI Africa Secretariat, partnered with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and participated in the City Biodiversity Index.

Edmonton has made biodiversity protection a priority by integrating biodiversity considerations into urban planning, and community engagement practices. These two areas help the City move towards mainstreaming the understanding of urban biodiversity and the benefits of ecological preservation. Through many programs and activities, the City has successfully incorporated biodiversity into various departments and fostered strong community and stakeholder involvement on conservation.

Ecological Design Approach to Biodiversity Protection

The City has actively protected 3700 hectares of natural areas and created the largest municipally owned park system in Canada. Throughout the City’s growth there have been a myriad of commercial development pressures, but despite this, the City was able to protect five hectares for every eleven hectares of Priority Natural Areas and worked around Provincial restrictions and limited tools to protect significant lands. As habitat fragmentation is a major contributor to biodiversity loss, the City has incorporated biodiversity and urban design in a biologically sensitive approach to city planning. Land acquisition became a key area of interest to the City, and in 2009 Council authorized a $20 million fund allocation and permit borrowing for land acquisition. The Edmonton and Area Land Trust is a resource established to create partnerships with private landowners and allocate funds to purchase valuable lands.

The incorporation of ecosystem functions into city building and municipal operations promoting sustainable development, and the protection of natural systems was prioritized and some of the key implementation tools to guide planning in Edmonton are as follows: §

Ecological Design Report -The production of this report included community members in defining specific biodiversity values and outcomes that should be preserved. This engagement strategy has led to outside developers moving towards designing neighbourhoods that are more sensitive to biodiversity values and reducing community conflicts.

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§

§

Ecological Network Model - The Ecological Network Model is a planning methodology that merges an ecosystem’s existing structure with community design. This approach is meant to increase ecological corridors, create habitats, increase biodiversity, and maintain the integrity of an ecosystem, by viewing the land area as a network of core habitats that are fully connected and integrated. This model was implemented in 30 neighbourhoods with measurable results and is a powerful tool for neighbourhood design as it is aligned with increasing growth demands, while producing healthy and biodiversity rich neighbourhoods.

Wildlife Passages Engineering Design Guidelines: This provides engineers with a simple methodology for maintaining connectivity at different scales within the community. They are meant to target locations that have been impacted by engineering works, and therefore, require more ecologically sensitive planning guidelines.

Municipal Policies and Plans for Biodiversity Protection

The various approaches in Edmonton demonstrate that economic viability does not need to come at the expense of the natural environment. The City has many plans and strategies in place that balance development with biodiversity, some of which include the following: § § § § § §

Edmonton Environmental Policy: promoting the development of environmentally sustainable communities.

Protection of the Natural Environment Plan: committing Edmonton to taking a leadership role in protecting its natural heritage and biodiversity.

Natural Connections Strategic Plan: demonstrating the critical role of habitat connectedness and highlighting ways to approach the issue both structurally and functionally to ensure long-term sustainability.

Edmonton’s Natural Connections—Biodiversity Action Plan: provides baseline information and next steps that apply an ecological network approach to biodiversity protection.

Natural Area Management Plan: The City has a plan that integrates conservation planning with operational guidelines for staff and community volunteers.

Biodiversity considerations have been integrated into the City’s The Way We Grow, The Way We Live, The Way We Move, and The Way We Green.

As the City of Edmonton implements their environmental plans, the City has leaned that there is a need to measure performance by monitoring implementation, overall effectiveness, and extent of its influence.

Mainstreaming Biodiversity to Community Members

The idea of mainstreaming a concept as broad as biodiversity is an onerous task, as it involves considering all forms of life and their ecological processes. The City has placed a great deal of importance on ensuring that biodiversity is understood by the community and that messages are tailored to reach the greatest number of people. This commitment is apparent in a variety of initiatives undertaken by the City to promote biodiversity awareness to diverse groups, notably the Biokit for New Canadian Immigrants and the Master Naturalists Program.

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Master Naturalists Program: Part of the newly-launched Learn and Serve Program, it provides the community an opportunity to complete 35 hours of training and field trips in exchange for 35 hours of stewardship volunteer-service in areas such as: natural area monitoring, inventory, naturalization, restoration, and ecological education. Modelled after the City’s successful Master Composter and Recycler Program, Master Naturalists provides participants with hands-on educational and awareness raising opportunities and the skills to effectively steward the natural environment. Participants become ambassadors for the City, and for biodiversity stewardship, as they work alongside city staff to build community learning capacity.

City staff and local experts educate the team on various plant communities and restoration techniques. Master Naturalists has the makings for long-term success as it is designed to ensure that these groups do not work in isolation. As a result, the Master programs have created a hub, or network, for local action through the opportunity to make connections with other local naturalists.

This has generated local excitement and momentum as it presents what is possible through meaningful collaborations.

Biokit for New Canadian immigrants: The Edmonton Newcomers’ BioKit Project is an educational and outreach pilot project that reaches recently arrived immigrant families. Readers are educated on both local natural areas and biodiversity while receiving hands-on training to help them learn about the natural world through positive experiences.

The Biokit initiative is a two-year pilot project with the following goals: § § §

Helping the City engage with a wider audience in biodiversity stewardship.

Making information more accessible to the general public, and particularly to audiences who face significant barriers in exploring and learning about local natural areas.

Developing mentorship opportunities for those interested in more involvement opportunities.

The Biokit was developed from Environment Canada’s Biosphere BioKit and the City is the first municipality to downscale the biodiversity publication to an audience of recent immigrants. It is a result of a partnership with the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers and the City of Edmonton Office of Natural Areas. Other partners include the Federation of Alberta Naturalists, Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues, Multicultural Health Brokers, and City of Edmonton Community Services. These groups support the publication’s development and distribution and connect multicultural communities.

Lessons Learned through Mainstreaming Biodiversity

Important lessons have been learned as the City of Edmonton gains experience and insight into the variety of effective ways to manage biodiversity initiatives and further prompt mainstreaming. § § §

Integrating biodiversity conservation into the City’s vision, policies, and high-level plans.

Partnerships are strategic ways to work around limited staff and resources.

Engage citizens as they demand high standards in biodiversity conservation, and create opportunities for them to demonstrate their interests.

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§ § § §

Measuring and reporting on progress to help develop a system of effective environmental management.

Implementation plans are still being written to build momentum.

Participate in biodiversity networks to avoid working in isolation.

Cross-department initiatives allow for biodiversity management to become a priority across different departments and staff.

Reference: Cities and Biodiversity Case study series: Canadian Best Practices in Local Biodiversity Management, 2010, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability Brazil: Curitiba, an Ecological Capital In the state of Paraná, rural mechanization combined with a policy to encourage industrialization moved a large population contingent to Curitiba, capital of Paraná, Brazil, driving its 370 thousand inhabitants in 1960 to reach more than one million residents in 1980. Meeting the needs of a growing city in fast expansion, without losing sight of its potential, was instrumental in establishing a proposal that enabled the change in the calling of the city, making its protected areas (Conservation Units) and the preservation and conservation of the city’s green areas, one of the City’s main features.

This initiative allowed combining the conservation of green areas with water resources.

Conservation Units fulfill several functions: protect biodiversity, prevent illegal occupations of banks of rivers and streams, provide recreational areas, sanitation, and flood control. However, the best partnership established was with the people who started to make of these privileged spaces for leisure since there was no access charge, including to the City Zoo, annually visited by approximately 1 million people. There was also an increase in tourism which grew from 2.2 million visitors in 2005 to 3.7 million visitors in 2012. In the eighties, the city had 51 m² of green area per inhabitant and currently this has reached 64.5 m².

Today, Curitiba is well known nationally and internationally as an Ecological Capital, a title conferred by the United Nations in recognition of its environmental policies in the1990s.lxv The City has become the most sustainable of cities, in the process proving that applying a city-strategy with strong values and a focus on integrated systems can harness the actions of planning departments to meet common strategic object.lxvi In Curitiba, industry is organised around the idea of “industrial ecology”; the planning of industries so that their activities complement each other, sharing heat or transport and forming a flow of materials, the waste of one industry being the raw material for another.

Curitiba has proven that it is possible to integrate Biodiversity in the core values of the Municipality with a people-centric planning on a budget mentality. The lessons Learned from Curitiba’s example are: § §

Articulation of strong, local core values in a city plan.

Creation of an independent municipal authority such as IPPUC to provide continuity and implement plans, as well as to monitor planning and research to improve future efforts.

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§

§

§

Integrated planning processes structured to assure that planners in all areas know the strategy and are working with a shared vision and developing their plans together. This way, many problems of unlinked development (e.g., not enough provision for green space) can be avoided.

Establish a close relationship between public transportation and land-use legislation as a guidance and development tool. Cities’ environmental quality and economic efficiency are highly dependent on transportation systems that are well-integrated with urban form because this lets them avoid weak transportation systems and unsustainable dependencies on private cars.

Developing new models that provide inexpensive, creative urban solutions and reflect local values are an alternative to standard, often-higher-cost approaches.

Colombia: Medellin, a City of Life The city of Medellín adopted a novel approach to manage and conserve biodiversity, launching Colombia’s first local action plan on urban biodiversity: “Medellín, a city of life.” By linking biodiversity and human wellbeing to the value of ecosystem services, the city developed a conceptual framework in which biodiversity is much more than management of strategic ecosystems; it is a multi-scale and cross-sector strategy to enhance the quality of life for Medellin’s inhabitants. A municipal think tank on biodiversity has been developed – the “Mesa de Biodiversidad”— that leads the implementation of the city’s action plan for integrated management of biodiversity and its ecosystem services. Urban biodiversity encompasses a wide range of gray-to-green arrangements, from private gardens to urban forests. Since conservation encompasses not only preservation but also restoration, sustainable use, and knowledge management, managing urban biodiversity requires working in new fields of action. In urban settings, education, awareness, and entertainment are as relevant as preservation. The conceptual framework and Action Plan proposed a wide range of strategic activities that incorporate different sectors and stakeholders, such as entrepreneurship, innovation, social inclusion, equity, health, transportation, and housing, among others.

Seeking to adopt a broader approach towards biodiversity management, from 2012 to 2014, the municipal government led a collective process to produce the “Proposal for Integrated Management of Biodiversity and its Ecosystem Services for Medellín,” later named “Medellín, a City of Life,” with an estimated investment of US$250,000 in city funds and US$200,000 in inkind contributions from partner institutions.

An inclusive and thorough biodiversity management process that has four components: §

Information baseline: From species to ecosystem services. Based on data provided by scientific research groups, local databases, and national and international museums, the baseline survey identified a total of 4,478 species in Medellín. Inspired by a relatively new approach in ecology, known as functional diversity, the survey identified all ecological functions of these taxonomic groups, including their uses as sources of food, trade, and medicine. For example, the rural inhabitants of Medellín use 302 different species of plants for 255 medicinal purposes. Medellín is one of the most biodiverse cities in the world,

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§

§

§

along with Singapore, Cape Town, Barcelona, Curitiba, Mumbai, and Mexico City, among others.

Exploratory roadmap on ecosystem services: Making benefits visible. How is Medellín’s diversity linked to human basic needs, climate change adaptation, or economic development? A three-fold methodology identified the most crucial ecosystem services for Medellin’s inhabitants: mitigating extreme events; providing and regulating water supplies; pollinating plants; supporting cognitive development and spiritual well-being through leisure and recreation; producing food; and controlling pollution control. The project developed a research agenda indicating where and how to improve knowledge on certain ecosystem services for the city and its metropolitan area—the first assessment of knowledge gaps on urban ecosystem services in Colombia.

Knowledge co-creation processes with different stakeholders. The project assessed stakeholders based on their perceptions of ecosystem services and to what extent they were familiar with the biodiversity that supports such ecosystem services. They were grouped based on the domain of their institutions public policy, planning, research and knowledge, social awareness, and law and enforcement. Such assessment was systematized, and it was included in the three-fold methodology used to identify the key urban ecosystem services for Medellin.

Institutional analysis. The analysis found 180 constraints limiting effective and integrated biodiversity management, of which the most challenging were: Technical and scientific reports don’t impact the decision-making processes; citizens have low levels of confidence in government action; practices for sustainable use and preservation are inadequate; and social cohesion, solidarity, and citizen participation are lacking.

While the territory of Medellín is not fragmented from an ecosystem perspective, there are multiple environmental authorities operating in the city that have overlapping jurisdictions and responsibilities. An additional challenge is that, for the last 30 years, Colombia has viewed protected areas as its flagship strategy for biodiversity management, which overlooks the fact that biodiversity is scattered across the country, including its urban areas.

However, the greatest challenge in implementing this kind of integrated approach is that biodiversity conservation it is often not a political priority. When primary human needs like water and sanitation are lacking, taking care of native butterflies might not seem like a major concern.

But biodiversity is much more than charismatic species living in the wilderness, it has important benefits to Medellin’s residents.

A local action plan for the comprehensive management of urban biodiversity and ecosystem services

The resulting action plan on urban biodiversity in Medellin has four strategic lines: biodiversity conservation, comprehensive valuation of ecosystem services, knowledge management, and education and public awareness. To support the implementation of the action plan, the final report was adopted as a public policy through a city commissioner’s agreement in 2014, which commits the city to invest each year in the comprehensive management of biodiversity and its ecosystem services. In addition, the technical inputs from “Medellín, a city for life” supported the formulation of Medellin’s Land Management Plan, which is the main planning instrument for Colombian cities.

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The 2014 city commissioner’s agreement on “Medellín, a city of life” is an indispensable policy instrument for achieving continuity across all four strategic lines and engage different sectors and stakeholders in a wide range of fields. For the municipality of Medellín, this process provides an opportunity to pursue regional planning in a way that recognises the difficult but necessary task of integrating knowledge and actions to improve the welfare of both people and ecosystems.

Medellín’s success should inspire other cities to explore new methods and concepts that link biodiversity to human wellbeing, resilience, and economic development – with a great sense of innovation, creativity, and experimentation.lxvii Mexico: Green Roofs to Clean the Air In 1992, The United Nations described Mexico City’s air as the most polluted on the planet. Since then, the city has enacted stringent pollution control measures to improve its reputation and quality of life. Part of their solution was azoteas verdes, the creation of city-wide rooftop gardens.lxviii Green roof technology is neither new nor unique to Mexico. In May 2009, Toronto became the first city in North America to adopt a bylaw requiring the construction green roofs on new developments. But it is the subsequent scale of green roof implementation that makes Mexico City exceptional, compared to other cities.

By 2014, the 20 million-person metropolis had installed over 21,000 m2 of rooftop vegetation, mainly on government and public buildings such as schools and hospitals. In the subsequent year, the $1M investment increased by another one third.lxix The evolution of green urban infrastructure in Mexico City and the creation of systems and their implementation is unique, in a city that faces many challenges for sustainability in the medium and long term. In 2007, the Green Plan was published for Mexico City identifying the targets and necessary actions to guarantee the city’s sustainability. The Green Plan has seven strategies regarding habitability and public space, and the green infrastructure involving the greening of building roofs. The plan allowed the municipality to set a very clear goal over the years and one very important part of this strategy was green walls and green roofs as a complement to ameliorate the air quality within Mexico City.

Since June 2011, the Federal Government has been granting a 10% discount to those people who decide to implant a green roof on their house and to encourage all citizens to make their houses “greener”. Thanks to these incentives, three years later the Government of Mexico City, through the Ministry of Environment, planned to create more than 6,300 m2 of green roofs on public buildings such as hospitals and schools. The green roof spaces will be especially designed for the establishment of local biodiversity through mound conformations in the design and the use of wild grasses. These measures, fostering installation of green roofs, are part of a broader framework of initiatives of the Government of Mexico. For instance, the Plan Verde in Mexico City is a large plan realized involving institutions and local governments in order to reduce the urban impact on the natural environment, using different green technologies including green roofs. Public choices also influenced the private sector and many Mexican firms are specializing in the installation of these special roofs on the buildings of Mexico City.

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From 2007 to 2012, 12,302 m2 of green roofs on public buildings such as hospitals and schools were created. The key element to promote this policy was the creation of the environmental standard, which sets the technical specifications for the installation conditions, parameters and the minimum quality and structural requirements applicable for the planning, commissioning and maintenance of green roof systems in Mexico City. This standard is the first of its kind in Latin America.

Argentina: An Urban Agriculture Program in Rosário Around two decades ago, Rosario was a rusting industrial city in a nation whose economy had collapsed. Many of the city’s steel, chemical and paper factories had closed, and one-third of the workforce was unemployed. By December 2001, around 60 percent of the population had incomes below the poverty line, 30 percent were living in extreme poverty, and hyperinflation had increased the price of staple foods four times over. Desperation in Rosario’s slums led to the looting of supermarkets by hungry people in search of food.

In February 2002, the municipal government responded to the crisis by launching an urban agriculture programme in collaboration with two key partners. One was the national Pro-Huerta (Pro Garden) programme, established in 1990 to foster small scale, self production of fresh food, mainly in low-income urban and peri-urban areas. The other was a Rosario NGO, the Centre for Agro-ecological Production Studies (CEPAR), which had to promoted vegetable gardening in the city’s slums since 1987.

The initial plan was to provide 20 gardening groups with tools and seeds, and then gradually to extend the programme throughout the city, but this soon was overwhelmed by requests for additional assistance. Funding for equipment, inputs and training workshops was increased, and within two years, some 800 community gardens were producing vegetables for an estimated 40,000 people.

The programme’s immediate objective was to meet the emergency needs of unemployed slumdwellers. But it also had a very clear vision of establishing urban agriculture as a permanent and important economic activity in the city. Given that an essential prerequisite was the long-term availability of suitable land, several local government departments collaborated with the National University of Rosario in a survey which found that 36 percent of the municipal area was vacant space.

Areas that could not be built on and were, therefore, suitable for farming included land along railways and highways, low-lying, peri-urban land subject to flooding, and designated greenbelts that had not been realized owing to lack of funding.

To provide gardeners with security of tenure, the city mayor approved in September 2004 an ordinance that established a rapid process for formalizing grants of vacant urban land to residents for agriculture. The Secretariat of Municipal Planning then worked with international partners to draft proposals for integrating agriculture into Rosario’s urban development plan.

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Meanwhile, the programme was implementing another key part of its long-term strategy: establishing a system for the direct marketing of gardeners’ produce. Within six months of the start of the programme, the first urban farmers’ market was in operation, and two more had been opened by 2004.

The first phase of the urban agriculture programme was so successful that, in 2004, Rosario was awarded the UN-HABITAT International Award for Best Practices in urban development. An evaluation found that some 10 000 low-income families were directly involved in gardening, and that producers were earning from sales up to US$150 a month, well above the poverty line. Twothirds of gardeners were women and, for most of them, agriculture was the main source of income.

The past decade has been a phase of consolidation for the urban agriculture programme in Rosario.

The focus has been on securing land and infrastructure for permanent cultivation on a larger scale, shortening marketing chains, establishing agro-industries and farmers’ markets, increasing the supply and quality of organically grown produce, and promoting horticulture as an integral part of efforts to rehabilitate brownfields, create greenbelts and improve the quality of life in disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

Underpinning the entire programme is a solid political and institutional commitment, from national to local level. The city’s commercial gardeners have been enrolled in the National Registry of Family Farmers, which entitles them to development assistance, social benefits, and old-age pensions. Pro-Huerta continues to provide training, seed and tools, and the Santa Fe provincial government funds the installation of infrastructure as part of its support for family and community gardening in urban and peri-urban areas.

The promotion of urban agriculture is a policy of the Rosario city government, implemented by its Secretariat of Social Development in cooperation with Pro-Huerta and CEPAR, and aimed at “integrating men and women into social enterprises for the production and processing of food for family, community and market consumption”.

Rosario is one of the few large South American cities that have incorporated agriculture fully into their land use planning and urban development strategies. Its Land Use Plan 2007-2017 makes specific provision for the agricultural use of public land in the spatial organization of the city and its territory. Under its Metropolitan Strategic Plan 2008-2018, Rosario is building a “green circuit”, passing through and around the city, consisting of family and community gardens, large-scale, commercial vegetable gardens and orchards, sfunctional garden parks, and “productive barrios”, where agriculture is integrated into programmes for the construction of public housing and the upgrading of slums.

In 2014, the green circuit consisted of more than 30 ha of land used to grow vegetables, fruits and medicinal and aromatic plants. The cultivated area includes a green corridor along the railway line through the city’s northern district. Four fenced plots, which total 2 ha, are equipped with irrigation systems and greenhouses and used by residents and schoolchildren from the surrounding area to grow vegetables, ornamentals and aromatic plants.

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Group productive gardens are used for the intensive production of seasonal vegetables and a wide range of aromatic plants, such as citronella, sage, and rosemary. The gardens, which average 2 ha in size, are divided into plots of from 500 to 1 000 m2, each cultivated by a gardener or a family.

Each productive garden provides employment for around 20 people, and includes a seedling nursery, irrigation infrastructure and a training area.

Flowers, vegetables, herbs and medicinal plants are grown in smaller plots called huertas-jardines, which maintain plants, shrubs and trees that have been adapted to Rosario’s climatic and growing conditions and provide seeds and cuttings for the city’s gardening community. In collaboration with Pro-Huerta and the Gardeners’ Network, the urban agriculture programme has also created training areas, called eco-huertas, where citizens can learn the basics of organic food production at home.

Rosario has shown that, when there is political will and a clear policy of social inclusion, it is possible to build, in a very short time, a successful programme for urban agriculture. In just 12 years, the programme has transformed and made productive use of the city’s resources by rehabilitating wastelands, recovering and revitalizing public spaces, and creating an alternative, sustainable supply of nutritious, chemical-free food.

It has also brought important benefits to the city’s low-income residents, allowing many of them to become engaged in civic construction and local development. The garden has provided an occupation and a space for learning and sharing experiences; for many women, it has brought economic independence and enhanced social relations. There is widespread public appreciation of urban farmers as guardians of the land, whose work improves the living environment and contributes to the food and nutrition security of all citizens.

Gardeners are officially recognized as entrepreneurs in Rosario’s solidarity economy, which allows them to apply for municipal funding for their own investment projects. In 2013, twenty of them were certified as professional “organic gardening specialists” by the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security.lxx Chile: Valdivia, a Wetland City Valdivia is a small city by Chilean standards (150,000 inhabitants) located in southern portion of the country, located at the confluence of three major rivers with their related wetlands, and surrounded by native forests. It is colloquially known as ‘the wetland city’ and has a long history of interaction with wetlands – namely in the form of a love and hate relationship – even prior to its foundation by the Spanish conquistadors in 1552. For the indigenous inhabitants, wetlands were valuable areas for crop cultivation, water provision and transport, and they had multiple words to describe them. At the time of the city’s foundation, wetlands determined the shape and physiognomy of the city and Valdivia came to be known as the ‘City of the Lake’. Towards the end of the 1700s, wetlands were used by the Spanish as part of their military defence system of the city. By the early 1800s, when Valdivia became part of independent Chile, wetlands started to be seen as nuisances and places to get rid of in order to convert the city into a more inhabitable place. Thus, wetlands were channelled, drained and filled, disrupting their natural flow and the

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services they provided to the city, literally disappearing from the city’s maps by the end of the nineteenth century.

During the early twentieth century, the poor and marginalised population tended to live around wetland areas, which were considered as wastelands and unhealthy places. The huge earthquake of 1960 and the following tsunami put wetlands back into their dominant place in the urban landscape, with large areas flooding and wetlands expanding towards the north and south of the city. Since the early 1990s, the urban expansion of Valdivia has been complex, erratic and poorly planned, as in most cities of Chile. Most of this urban development has occurred around and over wetlands, affecting their biological and physical qualities and the services they provide for the city.

Currently, the area of Valdivia is over 8000 ha of which almost 40% of the land cover are wetlands.

Despite the threat of urbanisation, the urban wetlands of Valdivia still harbour a large amount of plant and animal biodiversity. They are home to six vegetation communities, over 190 plant species and over 90 animal species (mostly birds). It is not uncommon to spot an endangered river otter, a flock of a rare species of ibis or a pair of black-necked swans nesting in the middle of the city. More interestingly, perhaps, is the fact that people are valuing this biodiversity and access to urban nature and green space in the form of wetlands more and more. Wetlands in the southern and poorer area of the city are now becoming public parks on demand by neighbours with huge public investment in some cases, basically because they are the only accessible green space for this population. Although wetland reclamation for housing development is still a very common practice, it is beginning to cause large debate among public institutions, academia and land developers, who are generally confronted by grassroots organisations and citizens that defend these environments and spaces for recreation, reconnection with nature and social cohesion.lxxi

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Chapter 8: A Biodiversity Tool Kit for Cities

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A Biodiversity Tool Kit for Latin American Cities Cities differ from one another. They are all built differently, vary in size, in their demographics and culture, and have unique regional climates and landscapes. For the effective management of urban biodiversity, there simply cannot be a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution. Fortunately, there are many solutions, as every local government can approach the subject in a variety of ways depending on what its overall goals, objectives and targets may be. This section presents a ten-step tool kit of practical and realistic actions that Latin American mayors and municipal governments can take to promote biodiversity in their city.

The biodiversity toolkit has been developed aimed at helping Latin American mayors and key decision makers to include and prioritize biodiversity in their agendas and to foster the development of sustainable and climate-change resilient urban landscapes. A ten-step process is presented offering municipal decision-makers a road map as to how to design strategies that generate tangible benefits from promoting biodiversity conservation in Latin American cities.

A rigorous and methodical approach is used for each of the proposed ten steps that helps to facilitate dialogue and understanding between all those involved and provides justification for biodiversity conservation in order to help scope and finance various projects and initiatives to protect and enhance urban biodiversity.

Step 1: Profile the City’s Biodiversity The first step is focused on mapping the city’s native biodiversity assets, to provide an initial baseline understanding of what is at stake and why is it important to protect local biodiversity and to embed it into the city’s landscape.

This profile is based on the City, or Singapore, index, a self-assessment tool for cities to evaluate and monitor the progress of biodiversity conservation efforts against their own baselines. As outlined in Chapter 5, it comprises the following: § §

The Profile of the City, which provides background information on the city (location, physical features, demographics and economic parameters) and identifies those ecosystems where biodiversity is immersed (ecosystems in urban and peri-urban areas) and, Indicators that measure native biodiversity, ecosystem services and governance and management of biodiversity.

Two products are developed: the first is an Ecosystems Map: Urban and Peri-Urban Areas and a the second a Biodiversity Connectivity Map: showing connectors at regional, national and international level. This leads to the second step, which is to map the ecosystem services status of the city.

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Step 2: Map the Status of Ecosystem Services The second step identifies what important ecosystem services are provided by natural ecosystems and what is their current status at the city level and its surroundings. It also identifies how these services may be impacted due to social, environmental, cultural, political, and/or economic pressures. A status map is generated as a product.

Step 3: Identify Critical Issues Impacting Biodiversity Healthy ecosystems can provide important protection and resilience from extreme weather events and disasters; for example, strategic placement of trees in urban areas can cool the air between 2℃ and 8℃. Each city will have a unique set of critical issues for protecting biodiversity and ecosystem services that need to be addressed appropriately.

When identifying these critical issues, all stakeholders (Municipal Governments, Opinion Leaders and Urban Dwellers) should be consulted appropriately to develop a unified list of key issues and achieve consensus as to how they should be addressed. This can be done through a variety of means: town hall type forums, one on one meetings, focus groups, questionnaires and surveys and through the municipal web site.

Step 4: Define Objectives, Goals and Projects Once the critical issues are prioritized, the next step is to formulate the required programs and projects that ensure that the respective objective and goals can be fulfilled. This step is expected to result into a portfolio of programs and projects that are formulated for short, medium- and longterm implementation. A good guideline is to develop SMART Objectives, those that are specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and time bound.lxxii Step 5: Define Actions and Schedule It is important to define key actions for biodiversity conservation; these can be broken down into four five steps in the form of a Biodiversity Action Plan: § § § § §

Break down each action into a set of well-defined deliverables Give each deliverable a timeframe Establish agreements with decision makers and community as to their implementation Identify how the actions will occur – what is their sequence?

Schedule with agreed to timeframes

Suggestions for preparing a Biodiversity Action Plan are provided in Box 1.

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Box 1: Prepare a Local Biodiversity Action Plan A Local Biodiversity Action Plan (LBAP) is a guiding strategy, complemented by specific actions and adopted by local government to achieve optimal and realistic governance and management of biodiversity and ecosystem services. It can also assist in translating international and national biodiversity policies and targets into implementable action at the local level.

By definition, a LBAP identifies priority actions and clearly outlines how these will be implemented, by whom, when, and using what resources. Other important aspects that should be included in the action plan are a framework for mobilizing funding and a communication strategy.

Biodiversity management at the local level is particularly important for many reasons such as: § § §

A large portion of the world’s land surface is administered de juris or de facto by local governments. They can determine whether and how areas are developed.

Cities have unique opportunities to engage, educate and mobilize citizens and can thereby cultivate a more ecologically sensitive society.

Biodiversity and ecosystems generate multiple services that can enhance municipal service delivery in a cost-effective manner.

An initial planning stage is desirable to determine who should be involved in the LBAP; how the plan process will be governed and managed; what resources are required and how long the process will take. Any activities entailed with developing a LBAP should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound (SMART). The following key steps are suggested to formulate a LBAP. Assemble a team It is recommended that a small core team be established to take primary responsibility for developing the LBAP. Ideally the team should be inter-departmental and where appropriate, comprise representatives of relevant external groups: local nature societies, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and academic institutions can harbor a great deal of knowledge on the whereabouts and ecology of local species and habitats. Over time, advice and capacity sought externally should be replaced by internal capacity.

Determine a budget Developing a LBAP requires resources, not only for staff, but also for meetings, field surveys, consulting stakeholders, marketing, etc. An initial assessment of the resource requirements needs to be done and should identify the necessary resources in order to be correctly allocated towards the development of LBAP.

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Set a timeframe Depending on available resources, local context, stakeholder engagements and depth of background research, a timeframe for implementation should be established. It is recommended that a LBAP should consider a 5 to 10-year timeframe. Given the LBAP is essentially a living document that evolves and improves in light of new knowledge and development priorities, its compilation is an almost open-ended process. Nevertheless, specific actions and deliverables entailed in the development of an LBAP should still be time-bound, ensuring that: § § §

The process of compiling the LBAP is not delayed by a lack of available information, as information is never perfectly enough.

The deadlines for drafts and the completed product (to be considered for executive approval) are realistic, considering the availability of those who are relied upon to compile it.

That the timing of important milestones, including executive approval of the LBAP, are synchronised with relevant processes such as elections and budgetary cycles.

Research This step further develops a community’s understanding of its biodiversity and loss challenges through data collection and biodiversity research. This will help determine what elements should be protected (based on local geography and context), such as species, habitat, and natural features, and support informed decision-making on conservation goals.

Plan Based on the biodiversity loss challenges identified, the third milestone guides the development of an overall vision, management goals and objectives, identifies management options, and examines possible drivers and constraints to act. This phase will also mark the drafting of a Biodiversity Conservation Plan, tailored to the needs of the community. Features of the plan may include baseline data, financing actions, implementation schedule, departmental and stakeholder roles and responsibilities, and monitoring indicators.

Implement At this stage, it is important to move the plan forward through the required approval processes and to gain the support of council, municipal staff and the community. Implementation of the biodiversity conservation plan will help ensure that it is a living document and implementation tools will be (re)assessed to ensure the plan’s success. This will help to mainstream biodiversity and offer the community a chance to participate in the delivery of the plan’s goals and objectives Monitor and review This step allows the community and the biodiversity team to assess whether the goals and objectives identified in the plan have been achieved and provides an opportunity to identify any problems and develop solutions. The plan should be updated as new information becomes available.

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Step 6: Assign Roles and Responsibilities Once the deliverables and the timeframes have been defined, the next step is to bring everyone on board and define the required specific roles and responsibilities for implementation. Social connectedness has a special role to play in the collective management of biodiversity and ecosystem services. This connectivity is needed to help build trust among community members, to develop new norms and social practices and to make local environmental issues more prevalent and important for everyone.

Roles and responsibilities can be defined as follows: § § §

Municipal governments are expected to gather consensus, ensure compliance and align biodiversity conservation initiatives with all stakeholders’ expectations.

From here a biodiversity action plan should be developed that prioritizes a set of actions, allocates budget and how implementation should be achieved.

Community leaders can use the action plan to foster biodiversity literacy throughout the city and tie actions into each neighborhood or district.

When people are well connected and engaged in groups or networks and when their input is sought and incorporated into planning and decision-making processes, they are more likely to become or remain environmental stewards and supportive of biodiversity conservation efforts.

Step 7: Create Budget and Financing Plan For many municipalities, the need to fund biodiversity initiatives is the most frequent constraint.

However, it can also be a driver: there is a wide range of revenue sources available to those local governments that are willing to think creatively about partnerships and entrepreneurship and to establish funds for targeted programs. Some of these opportunities are discussed below: §

§ §

§

Development charges: These are the fees collected by municipalities to offset capital costs incurred to support growth-related infrastructure projects. The fees can be used as an incentive to implement city policies that protect or manage biodiversity. For example, fees can be waived for developments that support ecological designs, species protection or the development of constructed wetlands. Development charges can also be used to support biodiversity initiatives near development sites.

Compensation: Involves a payment made by a development proponent to a conservation body to pay for the replication of ecosystem services. These can fund land acquisition, natural heritage feature restoration and long-term monitoring and maintenance.

Habitat banking: Habitat banking is a market-based mechanism that rewards those who restore or improve habitat. In exchange for constructing, restoring or protecting a habitat site, a landowner can sell credits to developers who need to meet requirements for mitigating and compensating for the environmental impacts of development projects.

As an example, the Port of Metro Vancouver currently operates a habitat banking program as a proactive measure to ensure that potential impacts to existing fish and wildlife habitat can be offset.

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Think creatively about funding

When funding is scarce, these alternative solutions can help offset monetary limitations and increase capacity to undertake a diverse range of programs, including biodiversity management: § § § §

Private and public partnerships, which create opportunities for local government and business partners to build, design, manage, operate and maintain a service.

Regional collaborations for service delivery or protection efforts.

Clear and detailed strategies for addressing biodiversity issues, which include time frames, measurable benchmarks, regular reviews and public feedback; and Pilot social financing projects, such as community bonds and crowd-sourcing.

Creative ways of financing can also be drawn from innovative examples such as: § §

The Cape Town Water Fund Act is a collective platform where the private and the public sector can contribute in the implementation of Green Infrastructures, targeted at the protection and preservation of the water sources that provision the city.lxxiii Equator’s Sovereign Social Bonds that were created in order to diversify its financing sources for affordable housing access, and thus reduce the housing deficit in the country.lxxiv

Step 8: Implement and Monitor For implementation to be successful, it is necessary to build consensus about biodiversity values across multiple institutions and stakeholders, in other words, seek the cooperation and validity among all participants with an interest in biodiversity conservation.

In order to gain this cooperation with stakeholders and to place biodiversity on the agenda, a wide range of communication, education and awareness interventions are needed. This involves networking, and establishing working relationships, defining common goals, influencing decision making processes, negotiating outcomes, strengthening capacities, updating knowledge and ensuring effective implementation.

It is important to remember that the process of biodiversity conservation is equally as important as the final product and it is very important to always keep in mind the cultural setting of your city (Step 1 - City’s profile). The action plan needs to set out indicators that measure the start point, the progress and allow for continuous improvement.

Communication should be a transversal axis across all steps. Without community engagement, any plan has a great potential for failure. Policy planning and compliance should be constantly assessed.

Suggestions for building consensus about biodiversity values between multiple stakeholders is shown in Box 2.

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Box 2: Building Consensus About Biodiversity Values To implement a successful biodiversity action plan, it is necessary to build consensus about biodiversity values across multiple institutions and stakeholders, in other words, seek the cooperation and validity among all participants.

In order to gain this cooperation with stakeholders and to place biodiversity on the agenda, a range of communication, education and awareness interventions are needed. This involves networking, and establishing working relationships, defining common goals, influencing decision making processes, negotiating outcomes, strengthening capacities, updating knowledge and ensuring effective implementation.

Many stakeholders may have little or no understanding of biodiversity or disregard scientifically prepared plans, policies and existing mechanisms (e.g. for sustainable use, quarantine procedures, EIA procedures, etc.) due to a lack of awareness of their importance and the serious implications of overlooking them as to how they can foster economic development and help alleviate poverty.

Achieving consensus will not be easy but can be done by the following considerations: Listen first It may be counter productive to launch into trying to “educate” all the stakeholders. It is more effective to ‘listen’ to these stakeholders and explore opportunities where common ground can be found and provide ways for stakeholders to find motives and reasons to change their policies and practices in a more environmentally friendly way. Often these motives and reasons have little to do with knowledge of biodiversity.

Get help from opinion leaders Not all members of a stakeholder group are the same. It is therefore important to identify the opinion leaders in each group to contact them and involve them in planning the means for stakeholder engagement and long-term involvement.

Networking and informal communication are effective ways of identifying opinion leaders.

This requires face to face contact and establishment of trust. Opinion leaders may not be experts in biodiversity, but their views and beliefs should be treated with the utmost respect.

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Step 9: Communicate Results and Engage the Community It is very important to highlight that without drawing a baseline of where the city started (Step 1 Profile of the City), it is not possible to demonstrate the biodiversity improvement and achievements of the municipality. Impact measurement and indicators are essential data-gathering steps for building the success story.

The focus should be on positive stories that engage the community and inspire new ideas at round tables. Connecting with influential opinion leaders and media is a key success factor.

Storytelling is a key component for the success and future Budget approvals on Biodiversity Action Plans. These plans should be thought and implemented long-term, and storytelling becomes a key ingredient in ensuring that the importance of biodiversity is never understated, regardless of the change in municipal government mandates.

Suggestions for developing a biodiversity message are provided in Box 3.

Step 10: Measure Positive Impacts in the Long Run Biodiversity is an integral part of ecological, economic, and social resilience and sustainability in a city. The variety of living organisms in a community provide various services such as clean air, safe drinking water, provision of genetic resources, waste treatment and protection from climate change effects, to name a few. Identification, management, and promotion of biodiversity assets will enhance municipal operations, community livability, and economic development. Missed opportunities will decrease community resilience and increase societal risk by increasing vulnerabilities to human health, the environment, and the economy.

Measurement of the success of biodiversity initiatives, and the indicators for doing so, must be carefully done to show lasting and positive impacts over the long term. This is the only way that biodiversity values will be truly recognized.

Suggestions for focussing long term policy efforts are as follows: § § § §

Stimulating and funding implementation of Green Infrastructure, Creating “Green Jobs”.

Building resilient cities in the face of climate change.

Protecting and enhancing biodiversity and demonstrating its many values to urban residents.

Most municipal and national governments in Latin America often fail to implement long term action plans, because of their short “4-year” mandates. Biodiversity action plans should be approached as fundamental investments for the future and survival of cities and timelines should transcend the limitations of institutional change.

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Box 3: Crafting the Biodiversity Message Urban biodiversity can be a difficult concept for some people to grasp. Although the term “biodiversity” has been used for many years by scientists and conservationists, it is not widely understood by the general public. To some, the term may indicate a diversity of human cultures; to others, it may mean a diversity of plant and animal species. A lack of resonance and clarity can be a barrier to promoting biodiversity work and getting ‘buy-in’ from stakeholders. However, educating a community about the importance of biodiversity will assist in mainstreaming the issue. Regardless of terminology, support for urban biodiversity is the goal and each community should find a communication strategy or approach that accurately reflects both the urgency of the issue and how people’s lives may be affected.

How to frame the biodiversity message The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Canada has had to think creatively about how to successfully maintain their biodiversity message while making the term understandable to the general public. To meet this challenge, they continually validate the term’s importance with context-dependent statements that include: “biodiversity is nature” or “biodiversity is all about connections and life around us.” ROM staff members reinforce the term’s meaning in their programs, outreach and promotional material with the goal that, one day, the term biodiversity will be in the mainstream and no longer require explanation. Clearly finding that definition and building community understanding around it will differ within Latin American cities and municipal authorities must consider their unique urban context when framing their particular biodiversity message.

Social connectedness has a role to play in the collective management of nature: to help build trust among community members, to develop new norms and social practices, and to make local environmental issues more prevalent and important to everyone. There is growing evidence that suggests when people are well connected and engaged in groups or networks, and when their input is sought and incorporated into planning and decision-making processes, they are more likely to become/ remain environmental stewards.

Urban greenspaces provide a pathway for people to come into contact with nature. However, natural areas need to be carefully designed to facilitate meaningful interactions, educate visitors and provide exploration opportunities. Developing social norms on environmental protection activities does this. The term ‘social capital’ is widely used to describe the role a community or group can play in the collective, multi-stakeholder management and in the understanding and protection of nature.

In order to create meaningful public awareness and engagement, as well as influence social behaviours, communities must act together towards a common goal. Often this will manifest through multiple organizations such as aid societies, naturalist and sports clubs, forest and fishery management groups and other local community organizations.

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Lessons Learned for Biodiversity Planning in LAC Cities This toolkit is a first step aimed at initiating biodiversity planning and management for Latin American and Caribbean municipalities. Biodiversity conservation is unique to each city and its communities and requires planning and management tools specific to each community and reflective of the multiple voices and perspectives of that community. The planning process must be scaled to fit the issues of concern to those in the community. Ideally, integrating current biodiversity projects, plans, programs, and policies into other departments is part of a comprehensive approach that focuses the Biodiversity Action Plan to the unique characteristics of each municipality.

Four key recommendations to do this are provided: 1. Risk management should be integrated in each step of the toolkit as a best practice.

Evaluating risks incorporates a prevention culture in the management of projects and in the mitigation strategies that increase biodiversity conservation in cities.

2. A bold communication strategy should be a transversal axis and should be constantly implemented. Communications include data gathering, data analytics, managing expectations and obtaining stakeholder engagement and buy-in from technical, social or financial roles.

3. Measuring impacts and success does not only contribute to biodiversity but also to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda. The SDG agenda should be promoted and aligned to public policies and private efforts. Biodiversity focused projects in cities can be one of the elements that has the greatest impact in achieving a sustainable world by 2030.

4. Projects are only executed if the time and cost estimates are viable, agreed upon and with a formal financing plan. Estimating budgets also involves evaluating and monetizing the benefit that will be obtained from achieving social and environmental goals.

It is hoped that the practical and realistic actions outlined in this document will inspire Latin American and Caribbean municipalities and mayors to initiate measures to promote biodiversity in their city. There is a clear need of urgency and a call for municipal action across LAC to understand the importance and value of biodiversity to cities. Governments need to fully integrate biodiversity and environmental issues into land use planning policies and municipal development strategies and to do so within the context of an organized governance structure and long-term planning framework. With over 50% of the world’s remaining biodiversity in nature outside of cities, and that already under serious threat, now more than ever is the time to act and incorporate biodiversity and its benefits into municipal policies, plans and projects throughout the Latin American and Caribbean region.

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Annexes

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Annex 1: Benefits of Green Roofs Public Benefits AESTHETIC IMPROVEMENTS

§

Urban greening has long been promoted as an easy and effective strategy for beautifying the built environment and increasing investment opportunity.

WASTE DIVERSION

§

Green roofs can contribute to landfill diversion by: o Prolonging the life of waterproofing membranes, reducing associated waste. o Using recycled materials in the growing medium. o Prolonging the service life of heating, ventilation, and HVAC systems through decreased use.

STORMWATER MANAGEMENT

§ § § § §

With green roofs, water is stored by the substrate and then taken up by plants from where it is returned to the atmosphere through transpiration and evaporation.

In summer, green roofs can retain 70-90% of the precipitation that falls on them.

In winter, green roofs can retain between 25-40% of the precipitation that falls on them.

Green Roofs not only retain rainwater, but also moderate the temperature of the water and act as natural filters for any of the water that happens to run off.

Green roofs reduce the amount of stormwater runoff and also delay the time at which runoff occurs, resulting in decreased stress on sewer systems at peak flow periods.

MODERATION OF URBAN HEAT ISLAND EFFECT

§ § §

Through the daily dew and evaporation cycle, plants on vertical and horizontal surfaces are able to cool cities during hot summer months and reduce the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. The light absorbed by vegetation would otherwise be converted into heat energy.

UHI is also mitigated by the covering some of the hottest surfaces in the urban environment - black rooftops.

Green roofs can also help reduce the distribution of dust and particulate matter throughout the city, as well as the production of smog. This can play a role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting urban areas to a future climate with warmer summers.

IMPROVED AIR QUALITY

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§ §

Plants on green roofs can capture airborne pollutants, atmospheric deposition, and also filter noxious gases.

The temperature moderating effects of green roofs can reduce demand on power plants, and potentially decrease the amount of CO2 and other pollutants being released into the air.

NEW AMENITY SPACES

§

Green roofs help to reach the principles of smart growth and positively affect the urban environment by increasing amenity and green space and reducing community resistance to infill projects. Green roofs can serve any number of functions and uses, including: o Community gardens (e.g. local food production or co-ops). o Commercial space (e.g. display areas and restaurant terraces). o Recreational space (e.g. lawn bowling and children's playgrounds).

Private Benefits ENERGY EFFICIENCY

§ §

The greater insulation offered by green roofs can reduce the amount of energy needed to moderate the temperature of a building, as roofs are the site of the greatest heat loss in the winter and the hottest temperatures in the summer.

For example, research published by the National Research Council of Canada found that an extensive green roof reduced the daily energy demand for air conditioning in the summer by over 75%.

INCREASED ROOFING MEMBRANE DURABILITY

§

The presence of a green roof decreases the exposure of waterproofing membranes to large temperature fluctuations, that can cause micro-tearing, and damage by ultraviolet radiation.

FIRE RETARDATION

§

Green roofs have much lower burning heat load (the heat generated when a substance burns) than do conventional roofs.

REDUCTION OF ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION

§

Green roofs are capable of reducing electromagnetic radiation penetration by 99.4%.

NOISE REDUCTION

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Green roofs have excellent noise attenuation, especially for low frequency sounds. An extensive green roof can reduce sound from outside by 40 decibels, while an intensive green roof can reduce sound by 46-50 decibels.

MARKETING

§ §

Green roofs can increase a building's marketability. They are an easily identifiable symbol of the green building movement and can act as an incentive to those interested in the multiple benefits offered by green roofs.

Green roofs, as part of the green building movement, have been identified as facilitating o o o o o o

Sales Lease-outs Increased property value due to increased efficiency Easier employee recruiting Lower employee and tenant turnover Design specific benefits

INCREASED BIODIVERSITY

§ §

Green roofs can sustain a variety of plants and invertebrates and provide habitat for various bird species. By acting as a steppingstone habitat for migrating birds they can link species together that would otherwise be fragmented.

Increasing biodiversity can positively affect three realms: o Ecosystem § Diverse ecosystems are better able to maintain high levels of productivity during periods of environmental variation than those with fewer species. o Economic § Stabilized ecosystems ensure the delivery of ecological goods (e.g. food, construction materials, medicinal plants) and services (e.g. maintain hydrological cycles, cleanse water and air, store and cycle nutrients). o Social § Visual and environmental diversity can have positive impacts on community and psychological well-being.

IMPROVED HEALTH AND WELL-BEING

§

The reduced pollution and increased water quality that green roofs provide can decrease demands for healthcare.

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§

Green roofs can serve as community hubs, increasing social cohesion, sense of community, and public safety.

URBAN AGRICULTURE

§ §

Using green roofs as the site for an urban agriculture project can reduce a community’s footprint through the creation of a local food system.

These projects can serve as a source of community empowerment, give increased feelings of self-reliance, and improve levels of nutrition.

EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

§

Green roofs on educational facilities can provide an easily accessible site to teach students and visitors about biology, green roof technology, and the benefits of green roofs.

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Endnotes i

https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html.

Accessed 28 December 2019. ii Ibid. iii Or as defined by the Convention on Biological Diversity as "the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems”. https://www.cbd.int/convention/articles/?a=cbd-02 iv Maibritt Zari, The Importance of Urban Biodiversity – an Ecosystem services approach, Biodiversity International Journal Volume 2 Issue 4. 2018 DOI: 10.15406/bij.2018.02.00087 v Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Current State and Trends. Washington, DC: Island Press; 2005. vi Marion Potschin, Roy Haines-Young. Defining and measuring ecosystem services. Routledge Handbook of Ecosystem Services. Routledge, London, New York; 2016. p. 25‒44. vii https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html.

Accessed 28 December 2019. viii Ibid. ix Or as defined by the Convention on Biological Diversity as "the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems”. https://www.cbd.int/convention/articles/?a=cbd-02 x Maibritt Zari, The Importance of Urban Biodiversity – an Ecosystem services approach, Biodiversity International Journal Volume 2 Issue 4. 2018 DOI: 10.15406/bij.2018.02.00087 xi Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Current State and Trends. Washington, DC: Island Press; 2005. xii Marion Potschin, Roy Haines-Young. Defining and measuring ecosystem services. Routledge Handbook of Ecosystem Services. Routledge, London, New York; 2016. p. 25‒44. xiii UN. “68% of the world population projected to live in urban areas by 2050”. Accessed November 15, 2019. https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html xiv Walter V Reid, Stephen R. Carpenter, Harold Alfred Mooney, Kartik Chopra, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis. Island Press, Washington, DC. xv xv Costanza, R., De Groot, R., Sutton, P., Van Der Ploeg, S., Anderson, S.J., Kubiszewski, I., Farber, S. & Turner, R.K. 2014. Changes in the global value of ecosystem services. Global Environmental Change, 26, 152–158. xvi Maibritt Pedersen Zari, Regenerative Urban Design and Ecosystem Biomimicry xvii https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/biodiversity/elements_of_biodiversity/extinction_crisis/. Accessed 28 December 2019. xviii CBD, Biodiversity and the 2030 agenda for sustainable development technical note Accessed on November 18, 2019. https://www.cbd.int/development/doc/biodiversity-2030-agenda-technical-note-en.pdf xix Pavan Sukhdev, Heidi Wittmer, Christoph Schröter-Schlaack, Carsten Nesshöver, Joshua Bishop, Patrick ten Brink, Haripriya Gundimeda, Pushpam Kumar and Ben Simmons. TEEB (2010) The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Mainstreaming the Economics of Nature: A synthesis of the approach, conclusions and recommendations of TEEB. xx CBD, Biodiversity and the 2030 agenda for sustainable development technical note Accessed on November 18, 2019. https://www.cbd.int/development/doc/biodiversity-2030-agenda-technical-note-en.pdf xxi Evenson, R.E. & Gollin, D. 2003. Assessing the impact of the green revolution, 1960 to 2000. Science, 300, 758– 62. xxi Mooney, H., Larigauderie, A., Cesario, M., Elmquist, T., Hoegh-Guldberg, O., Lavorel, S., Mace, G.M., Palmer, M., Scholes, R. & Yahara, T. 2009. Biodiversity, climate change, and ecosystem services. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 46–54. xxi Hallström, E., Carlsson-Kanyama, A. & Börjesson, P. 2015. Environmental impact of dietary change: A systematic review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 91, 1–11.

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