Edible urban forests as part of inclusive, sustainable cities

Feeding an increasingly urban population and ensuring the economic and social well-being of urban dwellers will be the primary challenge for cities in coming decades. The impacts of climate change are expected to slow down urban economic growth, exacerbate environmental degradation, increase poverty and erode urban food security. Many cities are on a quest for more sustainable urbanization pathways that will enable effective responses to the increasing socio-economic and environmental challenges they face. In the search to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” (Sustainable Development Goal 11 in the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda 2030), interest is increasing in growing local food. Edible green infrastructure, mainly in the form of urban food forests and trees (referred to here generally as urban food forests and also sometimes as tree-based edible landscaping), can help address a range of problems caused by rapid and unplanned urbanization, such as food scarcity, poverty, the deterioration of human health and well-being, air pollution, and biodiversity loss (FAO, 2016).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Two decades of forest-related legislation changes in European countries analysed from a property rights perspective

In the last two decades, attention on forests and ownership rights has increased in different domains of international policy, particularly in relation to achieving the global sustainable development goals. This paper looks at the changes in forest-specific legislation applicable to regular productive forests, across 28 European countries. We compare the legal framework applicable in the mid-1990s with that applicable in 2015, using the Property Rights Index in Forestry (PRIF) to measure changes across time and space. The paper shows that forest owners in most western European countries already had high decision-making power in the mid-1990s, following deregulation trends from the 1980s; and for the next two decades, distribution of rights remained largely stable. For these countries, the content and direction of changes indicate that the main pressure on forest-focused legislation comes from environmental discourses (e.g. biodiversity and climate change policies). In contrast, former socialist countries in the mid-1990s gave lower decision-making powers to forest owners than in any of the Western Europe countries; over the next 20 years these show remarkable changes in management, exclusion and withdrawal rights. As a result of these changes, there is no longer a clear line between western and former socialist countries with respect to the national governance systems used to address private forest ownership. Nevertheless, with the exception of Baltic countries which have moved towards the western forest governance system, most of the former socialist countries still maintain a state-centred approach in private forest management. Overall, most of the changes we identified in the last two decades across Europe were recorded in the categories of management rights and exclusion rights. These changes reflect the general trend in European forest policies to expand and reinforce the landowners' individual rights, while preserving minimal rights for other categories of forest users; and to promote the use of financial instruments when targeting policy goals related to the environmental discourse

The (new) role of public forest administration in Western Balkans: Examples from Serbia, Croatia, FYR Macedonia and Republika Srpska

Public forest administrations in the Western Balkans were challenged when facing novel forest policies following the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990â s. To answer (i) what (formal) goals lead public forest administrations nowadays? and (ii) how do public forest administrations fulfil these goals? we have evaluated the implementation of forest policy goals in Serbia, Croatia, FYR Macedonia and Republika Srpska by using existing criteria and indicators, and the 3L Model as a theoretical basis. Survey and document analysis focused on the effects observable in state and private forests. In state forests all public/state forest enterprises were able to reach goals of being multifunctional and profitable by prioritising marketable goods. Sustaining forest stands is important, but it is met differently in practice. Performance in private forests is much weaker and the influence of ministry departments/sectors is weak. In conclusion, the potential for a new, stronger role of public forest administration exists: (i) the supply of marketable and nonâ marketable goods could be increased, whereas securing sustained forest stands remains a permanent challenge; (ii) efficiency and profits could be improved if internal and external pressures grow; (iii) joining forces of forestry actors could strengthen the currently weak political role and enable a strong forestry representative to emerge in the future.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

Urban sustainable futures: concepts and policies leading to BioCities

BioCities are strongly linked to evolving contemporary concepts that have become an integral part of the urban discourse around multi-scale policy making. Urban communities are searching for new ideas for developing a sustainable future (Calhoun 2012). This includes concepts such as urban forest, ecosystem services, green infrastructure, ecosystem-based adaptation, nature-based solutions (FAO 2016; Pauleit et al. 2017; Escobedo et al. 2019), nature’s contributions to people (Managi et al. 2022), and nature-based thinking (Randrup et al. 2020). Many of these concepts have been adopted in the European Union (EU) urban policy framework based on the declared recognition of bringing nature back to cities and reward community action

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of and attitudes towards urban forests and green spaces : exploring the instigators of change in Belgium

The COVID-19 pandemic has strongly impacted our society, producing drastic changes in people's routines and daily mobility, and putting public spaces under a new light. This paper starts with the premise that the use of urban forests and green spaces - where and for who they were available and accessible - increased, when social restrictions were most stringent. It takes an explorative approach to examine changes in attitude towards urban forests and urban green spaces in terms of attraction (i.e., as the actual use behaviour), intended use (i.e., intention of going to green spaces), and civic engagement in relation to green spaces. In particular, it analyses the responses to a survey of 1987 respondents in Belgium and statistically examines the relationship between sociodemographic characteristics, urbanisation characteristics, actual and intended green space use, and changes in attitudes towards green spaces and civic engagement. The findings show that highly educated citizens experienced an increase in actual and intended use of green spaces during the pandemic, but that this increase differs among sociodemographic profiles such as impact of age or access to private green, and depends on their local built environment characteristics. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has strongly impacted citizens' attitudes, as well as (intended) behaviour and civil engagement with respect to the green spaces in their area