As part of the « Trait d’Urbain » seminar
Like many European cities, Paris is engaged in planning for new green infrastructures in order to mitigate the local effects of climate change, biodiversity loss and offer new amenities to urbanites. Urban afforestation is one of the nature-based solutions praised by the European Commission since 2015 and it is on the Paris political agenda (“Plan Arbre”, 2021 and “Plan Biodiversité”, 2018). If the quantitative goals are clearly stated (e.g. 170,000 newly planted trees by 2026), the planning discourses fall short on the expected ecological benefits as well as the governance path to implement new urban forests.
Based on a qualitative inquiry from 2019 to 2022, I explain how a civic group has contributed to new planning proposals through experimenting a new micro-forest planting practice (The “Miyawaki method”) on three pilot sites. We describe the collaborative governance process that emerged from the participatory budget and grew through the implementation of multi-actors’ partnerships between civic leaders and technical managers of the Paris municipality. Through experimental and collaborative practices, this experience highlights the combined role of social-ecological innovation and new institutional arrangements in designing more inclusive nature-based solutions in cities.
Hugo Rochard is an environmental geographer working at the interface between biodiversity and social-territorial dynamics. His doctoral research was focused on urban biodiversity, civic collective actions and management policies in the cities of Paris and New York. Using mixed methodologies in environmental and social sciences, he likes to cross biodiversity surveys with qualitative ethnographic inquiries, looking at the many interactions within social-ecological systems. He is now working as a post-doc on the IMPACT project (Biodiversa+), looking at the role of parasites in environmental governance and society.
« Trait d’urbain » is a seminar series organised by the « Urban matters » research collective for researchers to present and discuss their work in progress.
Free entry.