At first glance, not much. Nevertheless, both cities – along with Barcelona and Krakow, Hongkong and Beijing, among others – were selected as “case study…
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Gelsenkirchen ist Fallstudie in grossem europäisch-chinesischem Forschungsprojekt koordiniert von EFI
Was hat Gelsenkirchen mit der chinesischen Stadt Huaibei zu tun? Auf den ersten Blick nicht viel. Dennoch wurden beide Städte – zusammen mit u.a. Barcelona und Krakau, Hongkong und Peking – als “Fallstudien-Städte” für CLEARING HOUSE, das erste europäisch-chinesische Forschungsprojekt zu urbanen Wäldern ausgewählt. Und dies aus gutem Grund: Die ausgesuchten Städte sind mit besonderen Herausforderungen konfrontiert, die teilweise auf alle zutreffen, teilweise regional-spezifisch sind: von Umweltbelastungen zu hohen Arbeitslosenquoten, von massivem industriellem Wachstum zu Chancen und Schwierigkeiten, die Migration mit sich bringt. Gemeinsam haben alle diese Städte, dass stadtnahe und städtische Wälder sowie Parks und Bäume in öffentlichen und privaten Räumen eine wichtige Rolle spielen, wenn wir den ökologischen, wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Herausforderungen begegnen wollen. Urbane Wälder erhöhen unser Wohlbefinden, sind Lebensraum für viele verschiedene Arten und wirken negativen Klimaentwicklungen wie Hitzeinseln entgegen, indem sie im heissen Sommer Schatten spenden.
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Försterinnen und Förster fordern Umsicht
„Unter Covid-19 haben die Besucherzahlen einen beispiellosen Boom erlebt. Der Kottenforst war vorher schon ein beliebtes Waldgebiet, über das Jahr haben wir durchschnittlich 290 Passanten am Tag gezählt. Aber die Zahl hat sich im März und April um den Faktor 2,4 gesteigert,“ zeigt sich Forscher Jakob Derks vom European Forest Institute (EFI) bei einer Freilicht-Pressekonferenz am 14. Mai 2020 im Kottenforst beeindruckt. Waren vorher morgens und abends in der Auswertung der Zählstelle klare Spitzen zu erkennen, die die Forschenden auch auf Rad-Pendlerinnen und -Pendler zurückführen, so dominieren in der Corona-Zeit nun Waldbesuche an den Nachmittagen, mit sehr hohen Besucherzahlen. Im Vergleich der Wochentage zeigt sich, dass Freitag und Samstag stark an Beliebtheit gewonnen haben und über den Tag neuerdings die höchsten Besucherzahlen verzeichnen.
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The COVID 19 pandemic is transforming our society. All the basic elements of living together have radically changed in the past weeks: Where and how we work, whom we spend time with, whom we care about, what tasks and activities keep us busy. During the lockdown those that can, have been flocking into green spaces and urban forests for physical exercise and mental calming. At least this applies to those who are not locked down totally. Recent charts by Google, for instance, show an impressive increase of mobility toward places like national parks, public beaches, marinas, dog parks, plazas, and public gardens, amidst a general fall in mobility trends (e.g. the case of Germany).
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Written by Joshua Amaitum Elukut
“When we pay attention to nature’s music, we find that everything on earth contributes to its harmony.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan
Twenty first century cities are characterized by tall skyscrapers, high residential densities, improved public transport infrastructure, as well as buildings of historical heritage. More people are moving from rural to urban areas, with the proportion of global urban population set to increase from 14% in 1900 to over 66% in 2025.
It is unfortunate that despite this trend, many urban areas lack adequate green infrastructure thus the ratio of green areas to built up areas is low. This gives inhabitants the feeling that they live in a ‘concrete jungle’ and are divorced from the natural world, contrary to earlier times when trees had a dominant influence upon human life and were sacred in many cultures.
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there is a place
where children who have never walked, find freedom
where children who have never talked, find words
and more often than not, where every child finds a smile
-Source unknown-
Playing and learning in the forest stimulates the imagination, creativity and entrepreneurship. Nature is a great place to gain experience for the development of social and motor skills.
Continue readingPolicy recommendations for employing urban forests as enabling learning environments
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In the final working week of 2018, we received the confirmation that the EFI-coordinated CLEARING HOUSE project on urban forest-based solutions (UFBS) has been selected for funding by the European Commission. EFI will coordinate 27 project partners from Europe and China in a joint European-Chinese Collaborative Learning project on the role of Urban Forest-based solutions for sustainable urbanisation and resilient cities.
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EFI and EFUF combining strengths to facilitate urban forest-based solutions employment in Europe The majority of Europeans are now living in cities and urban agglomerations,…
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Can urban foresters really win the minds and hearts of urban dwellers when stressing the ecosystem services forests and trees provide?
Street trees are contested elements in the urban landscape, and the source of many complaints towards local authorities and tree managing agencies. Discussions on street trees can be intense and emotional, so it is good to understand where the discussions are grounded in and to understand citizens’ relations with trees. In this post I will explore if we can build on the concept of social representations to find win-win solutions regarding urban tree management.
Social representations explain how different social groups develop different understandings of an issue, based on their values, understanding, beliefs, knowledge, practice etc. (Moscovici 2000; Buijs et al. 2008). They are not individual cognitive representations, but socially constructed through social interaction, both within and between groups (Buijs et al. 2011).
We are hereby announcing the International Conference Urban Forests – Full of Energy taking place inCologne, Germany, from 22 – 24 May 2019 and call for abstracts to contribute to our discussions. Deadline for abstract submission is 1 February 2019
THE CONFERENCE AND VENUE
Since 20 years, the European Forum on Urban Forestry (EFUF) is a unique meeting place for forest and greenspace managers, planners, architects, researchers, public authorities and policy makers to share interdisciplinary experience and good practices within the field of urban greening, urban forests and urban forestry.
Urban forests are vibrant places for multifaceted recreational activities, social gathering and mental restoration, but also provide biomass for an urban bioeconomy. They are full of energy. And so is the venue of this years’ conference: the German Sport University Cologne – the perfect location to explore energetic interactions of trees and human beings.