Cities4Forests Convenes prior to the Urban Future Global Conference
On 21 May 2019, the high-level Cities4Forests exchange took place as a pre-event to the Urban Future Global Conference (22-24 May 2019) in Oslo, Norway. UFCG is one of the most interdisciplinary events for sustainable action and a meeting place fortoday’s most active and passionate city-changers coming from a wide variety of organizations, all levels and with forward-thinking action-oriented agendas.
The Cities4Forests Exchange was hosted at the City Hall of Oslo with over 45 attendees and 5 Cities4Forests founding city representatives: Mrs. Soumini Jain, Mayor of Kochi, INDIA; Mr. Olivier Andrianarisoa, Deputy Mayor of Antananarivo, MADAGASCAR; Mrs. Veronica Arias, former Secretary of Environment, Quito, ECUADOR; Mrs. Karina Aguilar Vizcaino, Ecosystem Improvement Manager, Metropolitan Urban Forest Agency Guadalajara, MEXICO; and Mr. Raymond Johansen, Governing Mayor of Oslo, NORWAY who opened the high-level exchange:
This high-level exchange was opened by Mr. Todd Gartner, Director of the World Resources Institute (WRI) team for Cities4Forests, introducing the initiative and presenting our goals and highlights from founding cities. This was followed by short statements from 4 founding cities and an open discussion with participants around areas of convergence and cooperation to achieve results on the ground. The event offered the chance to learn about cases that each founding city suffer considering their geographic diversity, their challenges and opportunities to better conserve, manage, and restore forests and natural infrastructure.