45 cities pledge to conserve and restore forests, citing public health, water and climate benefits

Amman, Auckland, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Mexico City, Oslo, Sacramento and more cities represent- ing over 164 million residents join Cities4Forests initiative.

EDITORS NOTE:
For updated information and a list of current cities, visit our Member Cities page.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, 12 September 2018 – Floods and landslides are wreaking havoc on cities from Bangkok to Bangalore. Urban heat islands are exacerbating sweltering temperatures from Los Angeles to São Paulo. Concerns about drinking water are growing from Bogota to Johannesburg to Jakarta. Rising sea levels threaten Miami and Mumbai alike. Now, a coalition of cities has emerged to protect their residents from these threats by deploying a highly underrated resource: forests.

Today at the Global Climate Action Summit, 45 cities across six continents joined the Cities4Forests initiative, committing to conserve and restore their forests while making residents more aware of the vast benefits of trees. Cities joining include Addis Ababa, Bogotá, Kigali, Kochi, Quito, São Paulo, Toronto and Vienna, with many more across the globe and in the U.S. such as Detroit, Los Angeles, New York City, Oakland, Salt Lake City, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

“Cities have invisible footprints on faraway forests that most people aren’t aware of. The commodities that we consume – timber, paper, palm oil, beef, soybeans – can be responsible for destroying forests. And the benefits that forests provide to cities are underappreciated too,” said Frances Seymour, Distin- guished Senior Fellow at World Resources Institute. “The more we learn about how trees interact with the atmosphere, the more we realize how forests influence the climate on both a local and a global scale. Forests are an important source of climate resilience and stability for people, no matter where we live.”