Public actor (e.g. municipality)

Kibera is Nairobi's largest slum/informal settlement. Kibera houses about 250,000 people and is the biggest slum in Africa and one of the biggest in the world. The Government owns all the land in this settlement. 10% of people are shack owners and many of these people own many other shacks and let them out to tenants. The remaining 90% of residents are tenants with no rights. Most of the inhabitants confront themselves with a food crisis. The project at Kibera is a recent initiative of the National Youth Service (NYS), a government agency that promotes youth affairs through the ministry of devolution and planning. The approach is seen as a cheap and healthy solution to food insecurity and runaway unemployment in Nairobi’s slum. The project also addresses climate change as food insecurity is related to an intense period of droughts: longer periods of drought (likely a result of climate change) in sub-Saharan Africa, meant the farmers had to depend on rainfall to water their crops. From a biodiversity point of view, the project will help with the urban biodiversity restoration (1,3)

Kampala called ‘The Green town’ its capital and the most important city in Uganda. The town nearing the Lake Victoria into the South, depicts both colonial and contemporary architecture and has a population of approximately 2 million people, spread over 21 slopes. The city also has a continuous flux of human capital (caused by the effects of climate change- e.g. droughts, erratic rains) from the country's rural regions which puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the environment, through inefficient resources and unstastainable settlement patterns. As a response, the city of Kampala tried to address climate change mitigation by initiating a large tree planting project in Kampala and its outskirts. (1,2) The plan identified “proper management of urban natural assets” and the planting of 500,000 trees as ways for Kampala to become a lower carbon and more climate-resilient city. One of its desired impacts was “increased green spaces and trees in households for improved health and income”. (3)

Park Podnikolie, with an area of about 100 hectares, is part of the water-green frame of the city and is included in the conservation zone of the historical and cultural value of the city of Mogilev [4,11]. Since olden times on the territory of Podnikol, there were up to 400 manor plots, occupied mainly by vegetable gardens. Now Podnikolie is a large park, which has become a favourite place for residents and guests of the regional centre [1]. More than 1125 tree saplings have been planted on the territory of Podnikolie to preserve the integrity of the historical ground, the historical territory [1,9,10,11]. Thus, the park is also called the "green heart" of Mogilev city. The densely planted area is officially a quiet recreation area where people "merge" with nature [1,2,6,10]. The project's goal is to improve the urban management system, promote the implementation of the principles of green urban planning, and improve citizens' quality of life through effective cooperation between local authorities and the population [2,9,10].

As part of the "Urban Forest Policy", the first Miyawaki urban forest was created in an area of 2,850 square meters in Lahore, Pakistan. The initiative was a result of a public-private partnership between Lahore Development Authority (LDA) and Restore Green. The project was carried out under the PM Khan 10 billion tree plantation drive. Miyawaki is a technique pioneered by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, which helps build dense, native forests. The approach is supposed to ensure that plant growth is 10 times faster and the resulting plantation is 30 times denser than usual. It involves planting dozens of native species in the same area and becomes maintenance-free after the first three years. [1, 2, 3]

As a solution to the increasing population, pollution and high energy consumption, the municipal government of Shiraz has launched the Green City project in 2008. The main aim of this initiative is to reforest the city's periphery and encourage citizens to plant gardens on rooftops and the private sectors to adhere to the city’s development plan with all construction projects. [1]

The Urban Micro-Lungs is an Urban Living Lab project in the East of Amman, Jordan that applies the Miyawaki methodology for afforestation to create new green spaces. As part of the project special urban forests were created with the aim to improve the quality of life in dense and deprived urban areas, tackle climate change caused problems such as the urban heat island effect while also supporting local biodiversity. The project was initiated by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment and the Greater Amman Municipality, TAYYUN Research Studio (1,3,4). While the project was just completed in 2021, "the Urban Living Lab has shown the feasibility of creating green spaces even in adverse conditions characterised by dense construction, high degree of surface sealing and lack of open spaces." (1)

Recognising the benefits which urban forests bring to its citizens, Salvador has committed to protecting and restoring the Atlantic Forest, and has developed its own local framework which goes beyond national requirements (Ref. 1). The city has launched several programmes under its 'Salvador, Capital da Mata Atlantica' initiative, which together aim to restore the forest which has "suffered from severe deforestation" (Ref. 1). Included under the umbrella initiative are programmes such as the "'Delivery of trees', recovery of parks and collective planting" (Ref. 4).

Senegal, like many other West African countries, is in an unprecedented position when it comes to the threats climate change poses. Climate scientists predict that the country will likely experience increased temperatures, decreased annual rainfalls, a rise in sea levels, and an increased frequency of heavy rainfall events. Automatically these events will change drastically the social and economic structures of the country and are reasons for concern for the people of Senegal and their government. For example, the city of Thiès is in an area where environmental degradation is very advanced. The tree cover is in a situation of extreme fragility due to tree ageing or abusive tree cutting. To address many of these concerns, the city of Thies is trying to become sustainable through the development of green spaces that are expected to restore the city's ecological dimension and contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases and the improvement of the living environment. (1,2)

The City of Fort Collins is "taking steps to restore flows, fish passage, and ecological function" of Colorado's Cache la Poudre River (Ref. 6). The river was "heavily manipulated for irrigation and mining" throughout the early 20th century (Ref. 6), and today continues subject to the impacts of gravel mining, agriculture and urbanisation (Ref. 1). Regional climate change predictions further complicate our ability "to understand how the river’s hydrology and ecology may respond to warming climate scenarios" (Ref. 1).
The City of Fort Collins was, therefore "invested heavily in this urban river through extensive planning efforts, purchase of approximately 700 hectares of lands within the river’s floodplain, projects to address stormwater control and conveyance, water quality management, and acquisition of in-stream flow water rights", and in 2011, the City’s Natural Areas Department published the Cache la Poudre River Natural Areas Management Plan which outlined "opportunities and challenges in supporting the river’s ecological function and reducing risks to life and property during significant flood events", particularly through the implementation of nature-based solutions (Ref. 1). A suite of nature-based solutions has since been proposed and implemented by the City of Fort Collins, two of which are the Sterling Pond Ecological Restoration (also referred to as North Shields Ponds), and the McMurry Natural Area Ecological Restoration (Refs. 1 and 2).

Campinas is a fast-growing city and like many cities in Brazil, it confronts itself with many climatic incidents linked to a hotter and drier climate. In Campinas, in spite of the good performance of the city and the region in economic areas, there is a historical lack of urban landscape planning that integrates adequate social housing and areas that should be protected, such as riparian corridors, ecosystem remnants and other relevant green areas that offer ecosystem services in the urbanised context. Campinas has developed plans, projects and programmes to tackle regional, municipal and local issues related to environmental quality and offer green areas to the least privileged residents. Ecological corridors are being designed to connect forested fragments and/or relevant ecological areas to enable the genetic flow. The municipal green plan adopted the concept of a connectivity line to promote ecological corridors. (1,2)