Through the Erasmus+ Uforest project, CREAF is opening a 15-minute survey aimed at people interested in promoting change in cities and filling them with trees and urban greenery. The survey will be used to create a custom-made training program.

Write a book, have a child... Traditionally, popular wisdom has encouraged us to immortalize our own self. However, planting a tree is one of those significant actions that allow us to transcend as a community.

‘What? I live in a city! Where am I going to plant trees? That’s exactly where: in cities, in your city. We need you because we want to train as many ambassadors as possible to turn our towns from gray to green. Through the Erasmus+ Uforest project, CREAF has launched a survey looking for driven people who dream of making a difference in their environment, their country and their planet through nature-based solutions.

If you believe you’re one of them, please take a moment to answer this 15-minute survey and share with us your training needs about urban forestry. It’s open until 20^th June! Uforest will use your answers to create training programs tailored to you. What do you say? Are you in?

This training program aims to provide tools to foster change and empower people from diverse knowledge areas that are linked to the transformative power of city forests.

CORINA BASNOU, CREAF’s Uforest project coordinator.

Doctors, urban planners, lawyers, business people or artists. Everybody is welcome!

Forests make a positive impact on the planet on so many levels. That’s a fact. And a tree is like an orchestra, a first-class multitasker that filters the air and enriches the soil, mitigates floods, cools and beautifies its surroundings, favors biodiversity and improves our physical and emotional health.

The same happens with people; the role of urban forests and green covers is not just a gardening issue. Greener cities affect and improve society's quality of life. For this reason, we are looking for multidisciplinary ambassadors who may come from one of these seven knowledge groups:

• Urban planning and Geography
• Biology and Ecology
• Technology
• Law
• Health
• Business and Tourism
• Communication and Art

Urban planning and Geography

Urban forests are essential to improving degraded land and to promoting sustainable urban transformations. This is a major challenge for those disciplines that study urban and environmental planning. As an example, urban forests and green covers act as climatic shelters and may be a solution to our planet's need to adapt to the current environmental crisis.

Biology and Ecology

Those knowledge areas that focus on the biodiversity and ecosystems conservation and management in the face of climate change are key players in creating urban forests. Such disciplines have an expertise in ecological connectivity and biodiversity within green cities, as well as in biological and human health responses to environmental changes.

Technology

When engineering knowledge and environmental sciences meet, urban forest systems thrive. Biological and environmental technology and geospatial data analysis can be applied to a wide range of areas, such as ecological economy and urban planning, public health, degraded lands, atmospheric CO₂, the hydrological cycle, or soil, air and water pollutants.

Law

Sustainable development should take part within a legal framework and be included in urban foresting projects. Environmental law studies ecological thinking and the relationship between human beings and nature. Thus, it sets the guidelines for a smart urban planning that is framed within the human right to a healthy environment and to green spaces.

Health

Health professionals must be included in the development of policies that maintain, protect and promote health. Such policies include urban forestry as an innovative way of improving health and as an experimental field for studying the impact of different types of forests on health variables and public health management.

Business and Tourism

Economically, green spaces favor the emergence of new and sustainable business models. In particular, as an important part of city beautification, urban forests help develop a sustainable tourism industry based on the preservation of the urban, natural heritage.

Communication and Art

Linking all disciplines, communication and art bring coherence and sensitivity to urban forest projects and channel their social and environmental impact. On the other hand, informative and artistic messages foster changes in people’s perceptions and attitudes, promote citizen participation and inspire innovative solutions.

Like the tree, are you a multitasker, too? Join us!

Uforest. Your urban forest.

Uforest is led by ERSAF (Italy) and it relies on European Forest Institute (EFI), as well as on other research centers, public entities, universities and consulting firms such as ERSAF (Italy), ETIFOR (a spin-off of the Padova University), Politecnico de Milano (Italy), Agresta (Spain), Universidad Transilvania de Braşov (Romania), Forest Design (Romania), Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland), Green City Watch (The Netherlands), Nature Based Solutions Institute (Canada), CREAF and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.