Nature in cities forms important green and blue infrastructure. These provide space for recreation, refuge for animals and plants under pressure from intensive agriculture, and resilience to the impacts of climate change through, for example, cooling and reducing flood risk. These diverse benefits of nature in urban areas are increasingly recognised and understood, but it remains challenging for cities to find the resources to protect and enhance urban greenspace for people and nature.
Nature in cities is under pressure from both urban development and the pressures of tourism. Protecting biodiversity rarely outweighs economic opportunities. In the cities hub, we have identified the need for robust frameworks to capture and understand urban biodiversity to be able to report on the negative impacts from development and tourism, and positive impacts of restoration and compensation measures.
In CircHive project tools and approaches are tested for piloting methods to monitor and understand the state of urban biodiversity and the wider benefits urban nature provides to people in cities. These approaches will help develop investment cases to maintain and restore urban greenspace and communicate the benefits of nature to the public.
"Nature underpins our very existence and livelihoods and is integral to the effective functioning and well-being of urban communities".
Valérie Plante, Mayor of the City of Montréal
