Ingrid Coetzee, Director of Biodiversity, Nature and Health for ICLEI Africa, recently shared her expertise with the international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW). Coetzee also spoke at and led several discussions on nature-based solutions at the recent ICLEI World Congress 2021 – 2022 in Malmö, Sweden, including a panel on Planning healthy cities: Planetary and human
A big, new park in the Malmö area, Hyllie, focuses on stormwater, ecosystem services and social sustainability and is constantly evolving. The park is one of the City of Malmö’s many resilience projects, which was initiated in the green plan for Bo01, the world-famous European housing exposition in 2001. Hyllie – the Öresund regions most
In Öresund, beneath the surface of the sea, hides northern Europe’s largest mussel bed. This 75 square kilometer area is covered with millions of mussels. However, the most impressive part isn’t the size of the bed, it’s the fact that the mussels act as natural filtering organisms, keeping the Öresund sea clean. Mussels provide us
In Montreal, they’re building Canada’s largest urban park. Once complete, the 8,000-hectare nature sanctuary will be eight times as large as New York’s Central Park. In Bonn, green roofs are now mandatory for any surface larger than 200 square metres. And 100 cities across Europe are currently involved in over 1,000 nature-based best practice solutions
In its 30 years of urban sustainability work, ICLEI has partnered closely with many of the world’s cities to form long-standing, mutually supportive relationships. The relationship between the City of Cape Town and ICLEI Africa is a key example. The City’s Executive Director of Spatial Planning and Environment, Mr Osman Asmal, reflects. The City of
Wild edible plants play an important role in the food of the communities living in Goa. While they form a significant portion of the cuisine in different seasons, they often remain undocumented. These biological resources are vanishing fast due to rapid urbanisation, and with them the associated traditional ecological knowledge. To counter this trend and
Imagine being in nineteenth century Europe. Imagine walking on a city street and hearing people complain about the smell and dirty drinking water. Imagine coughing because of the dusty air. While we can only imagine that experience, German classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven saw the reality of pollution and environmental degradation by living, working and
As we kick off a new decade, environment takes center stage. For the first time, the top five global threats in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report are all environmental. Climate action failure and biodiversity loss make the top five both in terms of likelihood and level of impact.
In a time when cities are bursting at the seams, policy reform is vital to protect ecosystems and build climate resilient cities that preserve urban nature. This three-part series will share three policy victories in Malawi where nature is being conserved and considered in Lilongwe City, the country’s capital, and beyond. Lilongwe City is often
Over three billion people depend on marine and coastal biodiversity for their livelihoods while 1.6 billion people, including 70 million indigenous people, depend on forests for their livelihood. Nature underpins our very existence and livelihoods and is integral to the effective functioning and well-being of urban communities. The decline of the natural world, due to
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