Cities and regions thriving with nature in 2022

Biodiversity, ecosystems & built environment

City and regional governments can look forward to exciting new offerings on the CitiesWithNature and RegionsWithNature platforms, including global insights, tools to develop local solutions, and new ways to connect with each other and partner organisations.

This year, forward-thinking governments from cities and regions will continue looking for opportunities to work with nature to build thriving communities. The CitiesWithNature and RegionsWithNature platforms will help them to do this, with new tools, partners, capabilities and resources. 

2022 is a make-or-break year for the living world. The course for the next decade will be charted at the UN Biodiversity Summit (COP15 Part 2), scheduled to take place later this year in Kunming, China. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration will also get into full swing after its successful launch last year. As always, local and regional governments can rely on ICLEI, one of the founding partners of CitiesWithNature and RegionsWithNature, to amplify their voices and connect them with the most important insights and partners.

On the online CitiesWithNature platform, cities of all sizes and levels of progress in working with nature are connecting, sharing their experiences and actions, and benefiting from access to a range of partner organisations and practical tools. Recently, New York was the 200th city to join CitiesWithNature, joining London, São Paulo, Cape Town, Barcelona, Istanbul, Montreal, Melbourne and other cities from around the globe.

Your city can also join CitiesWithNature, for free, here: https://citieswithnature.org/  and receive the monthly CitiesWithNature Buzz newsletter.

Several exciting new features, tools and partnerships are planned for CitiesWithNature and RegionsWithNature to contribute to this anticipated super year for biodiversity.

Action Platform to launch ahead of UN Biodiversity COP

On the Action Platform you will be able to showcase your city’s actions and plans, understand how they contribute to global nature goals and easily track your city’s achievements. The Action Platform is recognised as the place where cities will monitor and report on their voluntary commitments to national and global biodiversity targets, by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in the renewed Plan of Action on Subnational Governments, Cities and Other Local Authorities for Biodiversity (2021-2030). 

Get practical advice from the Nature Pathway and new Guides on topics like resilience and invasive alien species

In the first months of this year, the Nature Pathway will relaunch with a brand new, intuitive interface. It will offer a comprehensive roadmap to integrate nature throughout your city’s plans, policies and operations. A new feature, Guides, will also be launched, providing expert guidance on how your city can tackle specific topics, such as enhancing resilience by working with nature, or managing invasive alien species.

Connect with leading partner organisations

The latest partner organizations to join the CitiesWithNature partnership initiative, are the National Park City Foundation – which aims to make cities greener, healthier, wilder and fairer places to live – and 8 80 Cities  – which brings citizens together to enhance mobility and public space for more vibrant, healthy, and equitable communities. CitiesWithNature provides cities with a single place to link with leading international organisations such as WWF, Cities4Forests and UNEP. Keep an eye out for announcements of other new partners.

Get the tools, resources and research findings you need

The Tools & Resources Hub already provides access to cutting-edge tools and resources on nature-based solutions, ecosystem restoration and green infrastructure. This year, a Knowledge & Research Hub will also be launched: an online “meeting place” and resource library for practitioners, researchers and other experts, both public and private, to engage and contribute to emerging practices and scientific thinking on nature in and around cities.

Training and an online interface for the City Biodiversity Index

Also known as the Singapore Index on Cities’ Biodiversity (SI), this self-assessment tool helps cities to evaluate and monitor the progress of their biodiversity conservation efforts against their own individual baselines. This facilitates capacity building, master-planning, priority setting and budgeting for biodiversity. Training sessions on the tool will be offered this year by Singapore NParks, CitiesWithNature and WWF, with dates to be announced soon. CitiesWithNature is also developing an online version of the City Biodiversity Index this year, which is currently only available as an offline handbook.

Inspire and be inspired on the Community Hub

The CitiesWithNature Community Hub will be co-created by people from cities around the world via social media. It will be open and freely available to anyone from any city to share their experiences, photos, video clips and stories about urban nature.

RegionsWithNature - A dedicated space for regional governments and their partners

Following its launch in October 2021 at the Daring Cities global forum, RegionsWithNature, will grow this year to a fully-fledged platform for regional governments, offering an Action Platform, tools and other features. Founding regional governments that have already thrown their weight behind RegionsWithNature include Yucatan in Mexico, São Paulo in Brazil, Goa in India, Comunidad de Madrid in Spain, the Western Cape in South Africa and Quebec in Canada. RegionsWithNature is being developed by founding partners ICLEI, Regions4, IUCN, the Group of Leading Subnational Governments toward Aichi Biodiversity Targets (GoLS) and others. Regional governments can look forward to the first meeting opportunities of RegionsWithNature in the first quarter of 2021. Join RegionsWithNature here: https://regionswithnature.org/